:>]V[_PLETE
.-^OETIC^AL
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
UJcJyL^
■r->
X
COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS
OF
CONSTANCE NADEN.
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2008 with funding from
IVIicrosoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/completepoeticalOOnade
COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS
OF
CONSTANCE NADEN.
WITH AN EXPLANATORY FORE-WORD BY
ROBERT LEWINS, M.D.,
Snrgeo7i Lieut. -Colonel (Retired).
" We receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does Nature live ;
Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud."
— S. T. Coleridge.
London :
BICKERS & SON, i, LEICESTER SQUARE, W.C.
1894.
PUBLISHERS' ANNOUNCEMENT.
In this Complete Edition of the Poems of Constance Naden it has
been deemed advisable that the two vokimes, " Songs and Sonnets
of Springtime" and "A Modern Apostle; The Elixir of Life;
The Story of Clarice, and other Poems," should appear in the
order in which they were originally published. No attempt at
re-arrangement has been made. The only additions are "The
Better World " (which is printed on p. 172, immediately after the
conclusion of what formed Miss Naden's first volume of Poems)
and three miscellaneous pieces, "Winter and Spring," "The Priest's
Warning," and "Night and Morning" (which are printed last of all).
Appended to the present volume will be found a selection of
Personal and Press Opinions on the Works of Constance Naden.
S37SS0
FOREWORD.
" See all in self, and but for self [as all inclusive] be born."-
Fope's " Ditnciad" ^th Book.
I DO not think I can submit to contemporary readers
and serious students of common-sense philosophy a
better precis of the principle underlying both Miss
Constance Naden's verses and prose than by repro-
duction of the following curt and concise exposition,
which adequately expresses the scope and gist both of
her Poetry and Philosophy — the former in a more or
less informal and cryptic manner, the latter in a more
formal and implicit one. The very simplicity of the
subject-matter is the principal obstacle to its acceptance.
It resolves all objects into the subject self, and thus
deals the coup de grace to all Dualism whatsoever. So
that Anima, an ambiguous misnomer, signifying both
Life and Mind, or soul, is shown to be the product, not
the germ or source, of the Hyle or Matter^ — the Brain,
by its function, being the sole cause of consciousness,
without which all is blank nullity and nihiHty.
FOREWORD.
THK UNITV AND IDKNTITV OF THOUCHIT AND
THINC;.*
Nemo potest extierc seipstivi.
" rhilosophy tells us that the world is a picture which we our-
selves make. There is nothing in the world [including that ol)ject
itself] which we do not put there. Our whole life, then, is one
creative process."
The above afifirmation of Monism and denial of dual
subject and object is taken from T. Bailey Saunders's,
M.A. (OxoH.), profound article on "The Origin of
Reason," in No. i6o of the Oj>en Coitrf.j It seems
completely to bear out the scientific veridity of my
title, and of Hylo-Idealism, that on the apparitional,
phenomenal, or relative theory of the universe, to which
we have alone access, Self is to Self, further than which
research is vain, the Be-all and End-all of sentient and
non-sentient existence. Hence religion is seen to have
run its baneful course, and to be superseded by reason,
* Reprinted (revised) from the il/<7/»V/, of Chicago, ft)r January,
1894, edited by Dr. Paul Cams, Ph.D.
t See also a lengthy and serious review of tiiat able thinker's
"Translations from Schopenhauer" in the London Atheiueiiiii for
October 4th, 1890.
FORE WORD.
on which Mr. Saunders so lucidly discourses. For, if
Self be all-in-all, there can be no room, in such a
pleroma, for any Latria or worship, in the religious,
sense of the word, except Narcissus-like self worship.
We are thus thrown back on, and face to face with,
mere physical conditions, out of which ideal concepts
proceed, while rigidly excluding all those misnamed
'■'■spiritual ones, which hitherto have played so momen-
tous a role in the destiny of humanity.* We thus
make hygiene, as defined by Dr. Parkes in the solemn
introduction to his manual of that last (and first) of the
sciences, as not merely bodily sanitation, though that is
already much, but as supreme culture of mind and body
(or, to be more scientifically precise, of body merely,
including brain), the all-sufficing surrogate of Divine
worship. The old adage, mens sa?ia in corpore sano,
should thus read corpus sanum = ;/ie//s sana, merely.
This Folle face turns every extant ethical and mental
view topsy-turvy. As it must do by exploding " thing "
altogether, and by substituting our own thoughts for
objects of all kinds. It is true, or it may be granted,
that there is an objective or distal aspect of subjective
thought. But that fact, or admission, in no degree in-
* It is significant and suggestive that no terms have ever Ijeen
coined to express animistic concepts. Even Spirit, Soul, Lord,
Ood, etc., are purely materialistic ones.
FOREWORD.
validates the position that the only objects cognisable
are those incorporated with, and by, the subject self,
from which all " things " proceed. This interpretation
of the universe is, i)iter alia inulta^ that of the emanci-
pated Baccalaureus in the second part of Goethe's
" Faust," as enunciated in the lines thus translated by
the late Constance Naden : —
" I tell you this is ^'outh's [Man's] supreme vocation !
Before me was no world — ViV //ly creation :
'Twas I who raised the Sun from out the sea ;
The Moon began her changeful course with me.
I gave the signal on that primal night
When all the host of heaven Inirst forth in light.
Who but Myself saves Man from the dominion
Of dogmas cramping, crushing, Philistinian ?"
Indeed, it is the very first and last principle of
common sense and common place that, before a " thing "
is perceptible^ it must be made sensible, and where can
sensibility (consciousness) lie except in the setisorium
which manifests that property ? On the ground alone
of consciousness or sensation being a somatic office or
function it can only be, like all other organic functions,
an emanation of the self, and hence we are coerced into
the conclusion that all things are but forms of the Ego
itself, at once both Creator and Creation.
This non-animism thus makes each unit of humanity
all that has, in pre-scientific minds where Absolutism
FOREWORD.
and Dualism is the watchword of the intellect, been
predicated as Divitie. Where reason, based on positive
science, comes into play, or, in other words, when man
ceases to be an infant, religion or Theism disappears as
a childish illusion utterly incompatible with right reason
and rational ethics. All religious ideals and systems —
none more than the Christian — are based on hideous
immorality. For what can be more iniquitous than the
doctrine of the Atonement — i.e., of the vicarious sacrifice
of a sinless victim for a sinful criminal ? But preceding
this ethical crux is the logical fiction. For how can the
Parthenogenetic birth of Christ redeem him from the
primeval " curse " entailed on all mankind by the
mythical " disobedience " of our federal head and repre-
sentative ? From this "curse" virgins are no more
exempt than their grandmothers, and thus, on its own
data, Christianity is " hoist with its own petard." In-
deed, a 7-eplica of Adam's abiogenetic " creation " would
not serve, since earth and air partook of the " curse "
entailed on our " first parents." No God is needed
since man is seen to be an Autochthon, and, as such,
an Anteus, who derives all the faculties required for
existence out of the telluric matrix or humus (living
earth) from which he sprang.
As long as the absolute doctrine of dual existence
vitiated philosophy — a dual factor, in the guise of an
animating principle was, or seemed, a desideratum. But
FOKEWOKJ).
since the inductive biological theory, which defines life
as the sum of the organic functions and a physiological
state, was established, man can quite rest content in
the satisfactory creed that he himself — each for each —
is his own law, standard, criterion, and fitial court of
appeal. Clericals of all denominations are then seen to
be self-evidently "kicking against the pricks," when, in
our fin de siecle age, they attempt to bolster up the
obsolete anachronism of animism (Dualism) — a quite
impossible task, as I have before shown — from the in-
compatibility of two such factors as matter, and what
they are pleased to call "spirit," re-acting on each other.
It is, I repeat, a case of pure fetichism or ghostism —
the same in essence that induced the ancients to formu-
late their Lares and Penates, Dryads, etc., and, in short,
to feign a god, or goddess, for every phenomenon from
Jove, launcher of the thunderbolts, to Cloacina of the
sewers !
Pope, even, in his " Essay on Man," written many
years after the appearance of Newton's " Principia,'"
could not rid himself of the notion that " ruling angels "
were required to regulate the spheres. And, long after
Pope, poets invoked their muse as a source of inspira-
tion separate from themselves ! But, in our age, all
such confusion of thought is a really inexcusable blunder,
which must, sooner or later, prove a Nemesis to that
vicious civilisation which fosters so palpable a delusion.
FOREWORD.
Assume, as now we must do, that all objects and ideas,
great and small, including the abstract terms, Time,
Space, and Immortality, etc., are Brain products, that
Cerebration and Thought, or Mind, are one, and the
seemingly paradoxical Unity and Identity for which I
plead in the title of this exordium is seen to be a
categoric imperative. It really is a physiological version
of Kant's negation of Thing in Itself, from which, how-
ever, he recanted in all his works subsequent to the
first edition of the "Critique of Pure Reason." It was
rendered perfectly certain more than sixty years ago — a
full lustre before its present opponent, Mr. Ciladstone,
entered public life — by Wohler, when he artificially
manufactured organic — i.e., "living" out of inorganic —
i.e., pseudo-dead, compounds ; a perfect proof that a
vital Principle or Anima, in the sense of what is falsely
interpreted as " Soul," in the religious sense of the Anglo-
Saxon term for Life, is a fiction of the human imagina-
tion. An omnipotent, disposing Deity must be as much
of a fetish as the Pantheon of Olympus. As is clearly
seen from so many of these dispositions being failures,
as lunacy, suicide, disease, premature death, and other
multiform forms of Demoniac Evil. Anti-theism, there-
fore, not merely Atheism, as in the eighteenth century,
ought to be the charter of our present state ; the Latin
motto at the head of this Foreword being perfectly ex-
pugnable.
FOREWORD.
Devout nations and communities — i.e., in which the
public mind is addicted to religious exercises of Prayer,
Praise, and Spiritualism (other-worldism) generally, are
always tardigrade, and even retrograde. This rule is well
exemplified in the records of the Protestant Reforma-
tion. When Luther visited Rome, saturated as he was
with the diabolic and other superstitions of a Thuringian
forest coal-burner, he was filled with disgust at the
Atheism then prevalent amid the priesthood and cul-
tured classes. The former openly scoffed at the Christian
mysteries as codionerie. He introduced into his creed,
which so long has imposed on Northern Europe and
New England, all these degrading arcana. So that, for
more than two hundred years, (Germany, especially, fell
quite to the rear, as compared with France and l'>ngland,
in ethical and intellectual progress. Till the peace of
Westphalia in 1648, at the close of the Thirty Years'
^Var, all was, in that vast region, pure chaos. Indeed,
till Frederic the (treat's time, a century later, things
were little better. Even to the very close of his reign
that "first of German sons," who was himself a noted
Voltairean, as Schiller pathetically laments in his Wnc
poem, " The German Muse," cherished the opinion,
which subsequent events have proved so delusive, that
the Germans were " irreclaimable barbarians," as he also
held Shakespeare to be, whose dramas he thought only
fit for the savages of Canada. And this though in his
FOREWORD.
own lifetime Kant, Schelling, Fichte, Burger, Lessing,
Herder, Goethe, Richter, and Schiller's " Robbers,"
which last, no doubt, was especially distasteful to the
great king, were already above the horizon. David
Hume, it will be remembered, delivered a similar
verdict upon the English ^^ barbarians on the banks of the
Thames.'''' He held them as already quite below the pale
of Philosophy — a verdict fully corroborated by Lord
Bacon in his essay on " The True Greatness of King-
doms," and on " The Wisdom of the Ancients." Com-
merce he especially held to flourish during the disrup-
tion and decay of nations.
R. Lewins, M.D.,
Sjtrgeojt Lieut. -Col. (Retired).
Arinv and Navv Club, Pall Mall.
CONTENTS.
THE ASTRONOMER, Etc.
f.\c;e
The Astronomer ...
3
The CoNi-Essiox
11
The Roman Philosoi-her
TO Christian Priests
.. i6
The Last Druid ...
•• 19
The Carmelite Nun
22
The Alchemist
25
The Sculptor
.. 27
The Sister ok Mercy
.. 29
The Wife's Song ...
•• 31
A Letter ...
•• 34
The Mystic's Prayer
.. 36
The Pilc,ri.m
■■ 39
The Panthelst's Sonc,
OF
I^LMOR•l"AL^rY
43
Light at Eventide
.. 46
Books
.. 48
Memory
.. 50
Light-born Sorrows
•• 53
On the Malvern Hills
•• 55
CONTENTS.
January 281H, 1S80
Sprinctide...
Noonday ...
Twilight ...
Yearning ...
Changed ...
Sir Lancelot'.s Bride
The Abbot
Das Ideal ...
THE LADV DOCTOR, Etc.
The Lady Doctor ...
The Old Love-Letters
Love versus Learninc;
Moonlight and Cas
The Two Artists ...
Maiden Meditation
Lament ok the Cork-Cell
Six Years Old
SONNETS.
Jamakv, 1879
To a HVACINIH IN JANUAin'
Ti) IIIK FlRSl' SNOWDROI'
.March, 1S7S
M.\RCH, 1879
Al'RIL, 1879
CONTENTS.
May, 1879 ...
Stratford-on-Avon, May 14TH, 1880
In the Lanes between Stratford and
May 14TH, 1880 ...
Sunshine ...
In the Garden
Yellow Roses
July, 1878 ...
Sunset
September, 1880
Songs before Daybreak
The Seed ...
October, 1879
November, 1878
December, 1879
Undiscerned Perfection ...
The Painter to the Musician
Speech and Silence
Beauty
The Mystery of Lic.ht
Illusions ...
Day-dreams
Morning Twilight...
Semele
The Priest's Prayer
Weariness...
The Agnostic's Psalm
To Amy, on receiving her Photograph
Starlight. I.
Starlight. II.
FACE
• "5
. 116
Shotter\
• "7
. 118
• 119
120
121
122
• 123
. 124
• 125
. 126
. 127
. 128
129
• 130
■ 131
■ 132
• 133
• 134
• 135
. 136
• 137
. 138
• 139
140
• 141
. 142
•• 143
CONTENTS.
TRANSLATIONS ( sec also p. xxii.).
Thk Knic.ht of To(;c;enbuk(;. Front the German of
Schiller
Thk Maiden's Lament. From the German of Schiller
The Sharing of Earth. Fi-om the German of Schillt
Comfort in Tears. From the German of Goethe
The Wanderer's Night-Sonc. From the German
Goethe
Evening. From the German of Goethe
Bury the Dead Thou Lovest. From the German
Carl Siebel ...
Spring. From the German of Ernst Schulzc
The Ruined Mill. From the German of Julius Stum.
The Fir-tree. From the German uf Ltiise von Ploenni
The Well. From the German of Paul Heysc ...
An Evening Song. From the German of Riickert
My Only One. From the German of J. G. Fischer
Farewell. From the German of Emmanuel Geibcl
The Better World. From the German of Hieronymu
Lorm
147
152
154
156
158
159
160
161
162
163
165
167
169
170
172
A MODERN APOSTLE, Etc.
A Modern Avostle
The Elixir of Life
The Story of Clarice
175
239
271
CONTENTS.
RESIPISCENTIA, Etc.
Resipiscentia
The Recluse
Love's Mirror
Friendshii'
Christ, the Nazarene
Song
Time and Love
PAGE
291
297
298
300
302
304
EVOLUTIONAL EROTICS.
Scientific Wooing...
The New Orthodoxy
Natural Selection
Solomon Redivivus
307
311
314
316
SONNETS.
IIeloise
I. Bride
II. Nun ...
III. Abbess
Hercules ...
Prometheus and Pandora ..
The Nebular Theory
323
323
324
325
326
327
328
CONTJiNTS.
Thk Pessimist's Vision
The Gift ...
Andrew Marvei.l's " Dkfini'I'ion ok Love"
Poet and Botanist
Science and Phii.osoi'hy
The Double Rainbow-
Recompense
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
TRANSLATIONS (see also p. xx.J.
Ideals. Fj-oiii the German of Sdiilkr... ... ... 339
Fragments erom Faust ... ... ... ... 343
I. Mephistopheles on I.o^ic ... ... ... 343
II. The Baccalaitreus ... ... ... ... 345
The Eye. From the German of Eiiiil Ritiershaus ... 346
On the Water. From the German of Geibel ... ... 347
Dante and Nino. Fro//i the Ita/ian of Dante... ... 34cS
FRAGMENTS.
Winter and Si'RINc
A Priest's Warning
Night and Morning
353
356
360
DEDICATION.*
To J. C. AND Caroline Woodhill.
Ye who received me, when your hearts were sore,
With double welcome, since I came in lieu
Of one whose fond embrace I never knew —
Your child, my mother, dear for evermore —
Who scarce had time to greet the babe she bore.
But, dying in her spring, bequeathed to you.
Her father and her mother, guardians true,
One little life, to tend when hers was o'er :
Ye who have watched me from my infant days
With tenderest love and care, who treasure yet
Quaint sayings, sketches rude, and childish lays ;
Accept this wreath, entwined in April hours :
Yours was the garden where the seed was set.
To you I dedicate the opening flowers.
* This Dedication and the Motto on the next page were originally prefixed
t] Miss Naden's first volume of poems, " Songs and Sonnets of Springtime."
" Nicht langer wollen diese Lieder lcl)en
Als bis ihr Klang ein fuhlend lien erfrcut,
Mit schonern Fantasien es umgeben,
Zu hoheren Clefiihlen es geweiht ;
Zur fernen Nachwelt wollen sie nicht schweljen,
Sie tonten, sie verhallen in der Zeil,
Des Augenblickes Lust hat sie geboren
Sie fliehen fort im leichten Tanz der Moren."
SCHII.I.ER.
THE ASTRONOMER, Etc.
POEMS.
THE ASTRONOMER.
White, cold, and sacred is my chosen home,
A seat for gods, a mount divine ;
And from the height of this eternal dome,
Sky, sea, and earth are mine.
All these I love, but only heaven is near,
Only the tranquil stars I know ;
I see the map of earth, but never hear
Life's tumult far below.
Bright hieroglyphs I read in heaven's book ;
But oft, with eyes too dim for these.
In half-regretful ignorance I look
On common fields and trees.
THE ASTRONOMER.
Scant fare for wife and child the fisher gains
From yon broad belt of lucent grey ;
Rude peasants till those green and golden plains ;
Am I more wise than they ?
Oh, far less glad ! And yet, could I descend
And breathe the lowland air again,
How should I find a brother or a friend
'Mid earth-contented men ?
Though, while I sat beside my household fire,
Some dear, dear hand should clasp my own.
Must I not pine with home-sick, sharp desire
For this my mountain throne ?
I were impatient of the narrowed skies.
Yes, even of the clasping hand ;
And she, sad gazing in my restless eyes,
Would haply understand,
And know my fevered yearning to depart,
To dwell once more alone and free :
Well might I love, yet needs must break the heart
That puts its trust in me.
THE ASTRONOMER.
Yet hope and ecstasy desert me not,
But coldly shine, like moonlit snows ;
This earthly dream, renounced yet unforgot,
To heavenly splendour grows.
For oft, when sleep has lulled a brain o'erwrought,
Strange light across my brow is thrown ;
The glorious incarnation of my thought,
Urania stands alone.
She, passionless, of no fond woman born.
Towers awful in her virgin grace ;
Calmly she smiles ; the first faint rose of morn
Flushes her sovereign face.
Her atmosphere of white unswerving rays
Athwart the fading moonlight swims ;
Rare vapour, like a comet's luminous haze,
Floats round her argent limbs.
Her clear celestial eyes look deep in mine.
Her brow and breast gleam icy pure ;
She whispers — " Be thy heart my secret shrine,
So shall thy strength endure.
THE ASTRONOMER.
" So shall thy god-like wisdom soar above
All rainbow hues of grief or mirth,
And I will love thee as the stars do love
Even thy distant earth."
Then her eyes lighten, then her voice thrills clear,
But life and death contend in me ;
And still she speaks, but now I may not hear ;
Shines, but I dare not see.
How shall immortal splendour wed the gaze
Of man, who knows but that which seems,
Whose sight were blinded, if the sun should blaze
With unrefracted beams ?
Void were the earth and formless, if arrayed
In purity of perfect white ;
All things are clear by colour and by shade.
Glorious with lack of light.
But what is she, whose beauty makes me blind,
Whose voice is like the voice of Fate ?
What, save a lustrous mirage of the mind,
My slave, whom I create ?
THE ASTRONOMER.
Yet from such dear illusions Wisdom springs,
Though these may fade she shall not die ;
In fabled forms of heroes and of kings,
E'en yet we map the sky.
Slow-conquering Truth loves well the joyous noon,
But silent midnight gave her birth ;
The cone of darkness that o'ershades the moon
Revealed the orbed earth.
Man knelt to constellated suns supreme,
But as he knelt to golden clods.
Nor, till he ceased to worship, e'er could dream
The greatness of his gods.
He wove for all the planets as they passed
Strange legends, wrought of love and youth.
While o'er the poet-soul was vaguely cast
A shadow of the truth.
Kinsman is he to all the stars that burn
Mirrored in eyes of sleepless awe ;
And from his brotherhood with dust, may learn
The heavens' living law.
THE ASTRONOMER.
Nor shall the essences of Truth and Might
Sleep ever in thick darkness furled :
Yon dim horizon bounds my present sight,
Not the eternal world.
When the skies glitter, when the earth is cold,
In some divine and voiceless hour,
The heavens vanish, and mine eyes behold
The elemental Power.
Now has the breath of God my being thrilled ;
Within, around. His word I hear :
For all the universe my heart is filled
With love that casts out fear.
In one deep gaze to concentrate the whole
Of that which was, is now, shall be,
To feel it like the thought of mine own soul,
Such power is given to me.
My sight, love-strengthened, Time and Space con-
trols ;
No more are Force and Will at strife ;
Beyond the sun I pass ; around me rolls
Infinite-circled Life.
THE ASTRONOMER.
This realm where he his destined orbit keeps,
This world of planet-ruling spheres,
Borne onward with its Pleiad-centre, sweeps
Through unimagined years.
In suns, that shining for some nobler race
Their twin-born light commingled give,
And through black depths of interstellar space
A boundless life I live.
To me the orbs their fiery past reveal.
With each minutest change designed ;
Till, in this harmony of worlds, I feel
The future of mankind.
When each shall aid the universal plan,
AVhen every deed its end shall serve.
When e'en the wildest comet-thought of man
Shall flash in ordered curve,
When mighty souls, that burst all prison bars.
Shall their diviner selves obey.
When man shall hold communion with the stars.
Constant and calm as they.
THE ASTRONOMER.
When every heart shall perfect peace attain,
And every mind celestial scope ;
Such were mine own, save for this hungry pain,
This lack of earth-born hope.
I were content, though palsied, sightless, dumb,
If, blasting toil-worn brain and eye,
The heights and depths of human joy to come
Shone clear, before I die.
THE CONFESSION.
Oh, listen, for my soul can bear no more ;
I crave not pardon ; that I cannot win :
Yet hear me, Father, for I must outpour
My tale of deadly sin.
This night I passed through dim and loathsome lairs,
Where dwell foul wretches, that I feared to see :
Yet would to God my lot were such as theirs !
They have not sinned like me.
And then I saw that lovely girl who stood
Here, where I stand, some venial fault to show :
I was as fair, as innocently good.
One long, long year ago.
High thoughts were mine, and yearnings to endure
Some noble grief, and conquer heaven by pain :
Alas, I was a child ; my prayers were pure.
Yet were they all in vain.
THE CONFESSION.
Love came and stirred my breast ; not fierce or vile,
But springing stainless, like some mountain stream ;
And I was happy for a little while.
And lived as in a dream.
Thou art a priest, and dwellest far apart ;
In vain I speak of joys thou hast not known :
Even to him I scarce could show my heart,
Although it was his own.
Nay, look not in my face ! One night he came,
And I sprang forward, giddy with delight :
Father ! His blood-stained hands ! His eyes aflame !
His features deadly white !
Ah, wherefore ask me more ? Some hated foe —
But 'tis a common tale — thou knowest all :
A word, a gesture ; then a sudden blow ;
And then — a dead man's fall.
Dumbly I heard, and could not weep or sigh ;
Gone was all power of motion, e'en of breath ;
But from my heart rose up one silent cry.
My first wild prayer for death.
THE CONFESSION. 1 3
" Farewell," he said, " farewell ! Yet bury deep
My bloody secret, that it shall not rise ;
Or it will track and slay me, though I sleep
Nameless, 'neath foreign skies."
Such boon he craved of me, his promised wife :
Earth's hope, heaven's joy, for him I lost the whole :
Some give but love, and some have given life.
But / gave up my soul.
" Embrace me not," I said. But ere he went
One long impassioned kiss he gave me yet :
Still, still we loved — oh. Father, I repent —
Would God I could forget !
Ah, not to fiery love would Christ deny
The gift of mercy that I cannot seek :
Father, a guiltless man was doomed to die,
And yet I did not speak.
Mine was the sin ; for me it was he died.
Slain for the murder that my Love had wrought :
How blest was he, when Death's gate opened wide.
And Heaven appeared unsought !
14 THE CONFESSION.
But I, who dared not seek the Virgin's shrine,
Whose very faith was madness and despair,
Lived lonely, exiled far from Love Divine,
From peace, from hope, from prayer.
None dreamt that I consumed with secret fire,
Nor knew the sin that withered up my youth
I wasted with a passionate desire
Only to tell the truth.
But now they say that he I love is dead ;
Calmly I listen ; see, my cheeks are dry ;
My heart is palsied, all my tears are shed ;
And yet I would not die.
Let me do penances to save his soul.
And pray thy (iod to lay the guilt on me ;
Strong is my spirit ; I can bear the whole.
If that will set him free.
For could my expiating woe and shame
Raise him to Paradise, with Christ to dwell,
Then were there joy in purgatorial flame —
Nay, there were Heaven in Hell.
THE CONFESSION. 15
And then, perchance, when countless years are past,
Ages of torment in some fiery sea,
The grace of God may reach to me at last ;
Yes, even unto me.
THE ROMAN PHILOSOPHER TO
CHRISTIAN PRIESTS.
Well have ye spoken, but the words ye said
Stir in my constant soul nor love, nor rage ;
Through you my life is bare, my joy is dead,
Yet speak I calmly, as a Roman sage.
Behold the myriad orbs, whose light from far
Darts through the sphered heavens, when day is
done :
What if the dwellers in yon faintest star
Deem its weak light more glorious than the sun ?
And were it granted those dim eyes to share
The glow of noon that glads our earth and sea,
Would they not hate the white unpitying glare,
And choose to dream in starlight, e'en as ye ?
THE ROMAN PHILOSOPHER. i-j
Clear truth to vulgar minds no comfort yields ;
The fair old myths have served their purpose well
Is Heaven more bright than our Elysian fields ?
And was not Tartarus sufificient Hell ?
Till now, the ancient symbols have sufficed ;
But there is room for all ; the world is wide :
Zeno was great, and so, perchance, was Christ,
And so were Plato, and a score beside.
If I were young, I might adore with you ;
But knowledge calms the heart, and clears the eye
A thousand faiths there are, but none is true,
And I am weary, and shall shortly die.
It is not rest, to stand for evermore
And chant with myriads round a flaming throne ;
I crave not this your heaven ; my life is o'er.
And I would slumber, silent and alone.
Ye cannot give me back my one desire :
How have ye changed my daughter, my delight !
Since I, forsooth, must writhe in quenchless fire.
While she sings anthems, clad in vestal white !
1)
THE ROMAN PHILOSOPHER.
I have not warred with doctrines, but with deeds ;
In fair and generous mood I met you first ;
I hated not her teachers, nor their creeds.
And yet she scorns me as a thing accursed.
She deems my lordly house unclean, defiled ;
She scarce will sip my wine, or taste my bread.
Ye boast of virgin martyrs — if my child
Die for her faith, my vengeance on your head !
Ye sons of slaves, unworthy to be free !
Calmly I speak, yet fear me, crafty priests !
I will arouse the people — they shall see
Your bodies hacked with knives, or torn by beasts.
Go, eat and drink, and call your feast divine ;
But, if my daughter dies, ye shall not live :
The ancient Roman spirit still is mine.
And I forget not, neither can forgive.
THE LAST DRUID.
Despairing and alone,
Where mountain winds make moan,
My days are spent :
Each sacred wood and cave
Is a forgotten grave
Where none lament.
This is my native sod.
But to a stranger God
My people pray ;
Till to myself I seem
A scarce remembered dream
When morn is gray.
I know not what I seek ;
My heart is cold and weak,
My eyes are dim :
THE LAST DRUID.
Across the vale I hear
An anthem glad and clear,
The Christians' hymn.
Oh, Christ, to whom they sing,
Thou art not yet the King
Of this wild spot ;
I am too weary now
At new-made shrines to bow ;
I know Thee not.
They say, when death is o'er
Man lives for evermore
In heaven or hell ;
They call Thee Love and Light
Alas ! they may be right,
I cannot tell.
But if in truth Thou live,
If to mankind Thou give
Life, motion, breath ;
If Love and Light Thou be.
No longer torture me,
But grant mc death.
THE LAST DRUID.
Give me not heaven, but rest ;
In earth's all-sheltering breast
Hide me from scorn :
The gods I served are slain ;
My life is lived in vain ;
Why was I born ?
Gone is the ancient race ;
Earth has not any place
For such as I :
Nothing is true but grief ;
I have outlived belief,
Then let me die.
These dim, deserted skies
To aged heart and eyes
No comfort give :
Woe to my hoary head !
Woe ! for the gods are dead,
And yet I live.
THE CARMELITE NUN.
Silence is mine, and everlasting peace ;
My heart is empty, waiting for its Lord ;
All hope, all passion, all desire shall cease.
And loss of self shall be my last reward.
For I would lose my life, my thought, my will ;
The love and hate, the grief and joy of earth :
I watch and pray, and am for ever still ;
So shall I find the death, which yet is birth.
Yet once I loved to hear the wild birds sing,
I knew the hedge-row blossoms all by name ;
Keen sight was mine, to trace the budding spring.
Clear voice, for songs of joy when summer came.
Too dear I held each earthly sight and sound,
Too well I loved each fair created thing,
And when I prayed to Him I had not found,
I called Him in my heart " the mountains' King."
THE CARMELITE NUN.
All, all is past — gone, every vain delight ;
No beauty tempts me in this lonely cell :
Yet why, O Lord, were earth and sky so bright.
Winning the soul that in Thyself should dwell ?
Often my heart recalls the sacred time
When fell the tresses of my nut-brown hair ;
But then will come — O God, forgive the crime ! —
That guilty question — Can I still be fair ?
I cannot quite forget that I am young ;
I sometimes long to see my mother's face :
Oh, when I left her, how she wept, and clung
About my neck in agonized embrace !
And there was one — Ah, no, the thought is sin —
Why come these thronging forms of earthly grace ?
Close, close, my heart ! Thou shalt not let them in,
To break the stillness of this holy place.
Oh, Mary, Mother, help me to endure !
I am a woman, with a heart like thine :
But no — thy nature is too high and pure,
Thou canst not feel these low-born pangs of mine.
24 THE CARMELITE NUN.
Oh, for the vision of the Master's face !
Oh, for the music of the heavenly throng !
I have but Hved on earth a httle space.
And yet I cry, " How long, O Lord, how long?"
THE ALCHEMIST.
In lonely toil my manhood has been spent,
Spurning all ties of home, all joyance free ;
And now my heart is sick, my frame is bent,
And I would sleep, but rest is not for me.
Two gifts I seek, two wondrous powers unknown
Shall yield their treasures to my dauntless mind ;
The meaner, boundless wealth to me alone ;
The nobler, endless life for all mankind.
My star of distant hope doth far transcend
All dew-drop glories, that around me lie :
With Nature I will struggle to the end ;
Conquer I must, though conquering I should die,
Though I should die, ere I have tasted life,
Losing the heritage I give to all ;
Though, as I grasp the trophy of the strife,
My battle-wearied arm should powerless fall.
26 THE ALCHEMIST.
I conquer still, though strength may not be mine
To drink the cup my dying hand prepares \
My life, but not my triumph I resign.
For all mankind shall be my deathless heirs.
I care not who the victor's crown may wear,
I care not, though my bones neglected lie :
This is my latest, this my only prayer —
Come life, come death, let not my wisdom die.
Yet oh ! sweet Life, for whom I long have served.
Whose glorious beauty I from far have seen.
Not this reward thy votary deserved.
Not this thy warrior's guerdon should have been.
Oh no, it cannot be ! for I shall live.
And priceless bounty royally impart.
And life and love, and wealth and gladness give,
Dug from the treasure caverns of my heart.
I still will hope, and struggle for the crown ;
Night shall not come, before I grasp the truth ;
For I will yet behold my just renown,
And feel at last the fresh delight of youth.
THE SCULPTOR.
Before the noblest form his genius wrought
The sculptor stood : with awe, but not with pride,
He saw the image of his highest thought,
His inner self, transfigured, purified.
He spoke with sad emotion, half concealed.
Like one who sorrows, but would fain rejoice ;
No glad content was in his eye revealed.
Nor any thought of triumph in his voice.
" This is my grand ideal. 'Twas for this
I gave my strength, while yet an eager boy ;
Leaving fresh mirth for some diviner bliss.
Trusting to Hope my fair estate of joy.
" But hope is gone for ever. I am left
With this sublime fulfilment of my dreams ;
Not of the midnight loveliness bereft.
Yet clear and steadfast in the noonday beams.
28 THE SCULPTOR.
"Oh, that some charm were wanting ! that some stain
Marred the ideal grace that my vision wore !
For I may Hve, but cannot hope again,
And I may toil, but shall advance no more.
" I saw my rival frown, his cheek turn pale.
In envy of the fame so dearly bought ;
But this I know — the hope of those who fail
Is better than the victory they sought.
" Yet in my heart some new delights may spring.
As humble flowers on lordly ruins live ;
Still shall my work some tranquil pleasures bring.
Though not the ecstasy it once could give.
" I do not grieve that glowing youth is spent.
Nor would I quench the yet remaining fire ;
Since lofty joy dwells not with calm content,
Nor peaceful happiness with strong desire."
THE SISTER OF MERCY.
Speak not of passion, for my heart is tired,
I should but grieve thee with unheeding ears ;
Speak not of hope, nor flash thy soul inspired
In haggard eyes, that do but shine with tears.
Think not I weep because my task is o'er ;
This is but weakness — I must rest to-day :
Nay, let me bid farewell and go my way,
Then shall I soon be patient as before.
Yes, thou art grateful, that I nursed thee well ;
This is not love, for love comes swift and free :
Yet might I long with one so kind to dwell,
Cared for as in thy need I cared for thee :
And sometimes when at night beside thy bed
I sat and held thy hand, or bathed thy head.
And heard the wild delirious words, and knew
Even by these, how brave thou wert, and true,
Almost I loved — but m.any valiant men
These hands have tended, and shall tend again
And now thou art not fevered or distressed
30 THE SISTER OF MERCY.
I hold thee nothing dearer than the rest.
Nay, tell me not thy strong young heart will break
If to thy prayer such cold response I make ;
It will not break — hearts cannot break, I know,
Or this weak heart had broken long ago.
Ah no ! I would not love thee, if I could ;
And when I cry, in some rebellious mood,
" To live for others is to live alone ;
Oh, for a love that is not gratitude,
Oh, for a little joy that is my own !"
Then shall I think of thee, and shall be strong.
Knowing thee noblest, best, yet undesired :
Ah, for what other, by what passion fired.
Could I desert my life-work, loved so long ?
I marvel grief like thine can move me still.
Who have seen death, and worse than death, ere now-
Nay, look not glad, rise up ; thou shalt not bow
Thy knee, as if these tears thy hope fulfil :
Farewell ! I am not bound by any vow ;
This is the voice of mine own steadfast will.
THE WIFE'S SONG.
I. Night.
She kneels with folded hands, as though she prayed ;
Over her pure, pale cheek the moonlight streams,
And o'er the slender form, in white arrayed ;
Her room is consecrate to bridal dreams,
And she is like some lonely priestess-maid,
Believing, though her god be silent long,
And in his temple chanting secret song.
" To heaven I lift my longing eyes,
Knowing that yonder tranquil moon
Is bright for you in western skies.
And has she power your soul to tune
In subtlest harmony divine
With all the passioned thoughts of mine ?
" Nay, rather let her give you rest.
In peace to sleep, with joy to wake ;
32 THE WIFES SONG.
Yet, if a dream the slumber break,
Dream of my yearning lips and breast.
Hungered and lone, far off and sad,
Ikit dream them near, and dream them glad !"
II. Morning.
Now has she slept ; nor fell there any blight
Over her beauty from those wakeful hours ;
Her darkest grief was but a moonlit night,
Tuneful with birds, and sweet with summer flowers,
Closed by an early daybreak of delight ;
And now she lifts anew her matin chant.
With all the garden choir conjubilant.
" The morning sunshine floods my room.
Its tender glow my brow has kissed,
And scattered all the night-born gloom ;
Yon, floating, thin, translucent mist.
Pierced through and through with living gold
Makes lovelier what it half enshrouds.
And you in distant skies behold
The self-same sun, but other clouds.
THE WIFE'S SONG. 33
" Trim English lowlands bloom for me,
For you, Atlantic waves are bright ;
For both, o'er earth, and sky, and sea,
Through thought and passion, mind and heart.
Still streams the same all-glorious light :
Earth's barriers keep us far apart,
But we are one at heaven's height."
A LETTER.
Only a woman's letter, brown with age,
Yet breathing deathless love, too strong and deep
E'er to be told, save by the written page.
That cannot blush, or hesitate, or weep :
Only a letter, treasured by the dead ;
Voiceful, yet ever powerless to impart
Its hidden melodies to any heart
Alien from hers who wrote, from his who read ;
Save as a lute long silent, waked at last
By heedless fingers, or by winds that thrill
The chords untuned, may feebly murmur still
Some love-sweet echoes from the tuneful past.
Take my one treasure : take, and ever keep
My whole heart's love : nor shall the gift be vain,
Although it cannot bring you rest from pain.
Nor glad forgetfulness, nor trancjuil sleep.
A LETTER. 35
Oh, that my power were boundless as my love !
Then would I give to him I hold so dear
Joys faintly dreamt by many an ancient seer,
Chanting sweet fables of the heavens above.
"Alas," I thought, " such dreams are all too bright,
Too poor am I, of god-like gifts to sing ;"
But you have said that even these I bring ;
You tell me, that to raptured touch and sight,
I seem the essence of ethereal Spring,
The incarnation of perfume and light.
Wherefore I will not grieve, but gladly twine
Amid your mellow fruit my virgin flowers :
All have their time for love, and this is ours ;
Let us rejoice, while yet the sun doth shine.
THE MYSTIC'S PRAYER.
My God, who art the God of loneliness,
Who, Life of human souls, art yet alone.
Who, Lord of joy, dost bear the world's distress,
Come Thou, and quench my being in Thine own ;
Come, in this mute cathedral make Thy throne
While moonlight through the blazoned window streams.
Where kings and saints a ceaseless vigil keep ;
Their reflex glories, like celestial dreams.
Haunt the grey carven brows of those who sleep,
Illuming changeless eyes, that will not wake and
weep.
Thy sleep, O Christ, hath sanctified their calm ;
Their hands point upward ; yet nor wish nor care
Doth move Thy trancjuil souls to join the psalm
Sung in this ancient home of tears and prayer.
Yes, these are dead ; but I, who live and breathe,
Would learn of them, and dying would bequeath
THE MYSTIC'S PRAYER. yj
A memory of one, who deaf to sound
Communed with Silence, guardian of all truth ;
Who, with divinest midnight compassed round,
The secret soul of earth and heaven found,
And knew the heart of death, wherein are life and
youth.
For this one hope I wrestle, day and night ;
In this one faith I joined thy chosen saints.
And left my virgin love, my young delight,
An earth-born cloud, that seemed most fair and white
Until I looked beyond, and saw the sun,
And blinded by his beams, desired not sight.
Now might I dream that heaven is almost won.
Save that yon pale Madonna's plaintive smile
Thrills me with anguish, till my spirit faints.
Till, even in this lone cathedral aisle,
A sad voice murmurs — •" Didst thou scorn thy life
For love of God ? and hath He sealed thy choice ?
A maid contented, or a happy wife
I might have been." Hush, Lord, this bitter voice.
I am not worthy, save of Thy disdain.
Yet unto Thee have I performed my vow,
And tortured soul and sense, and prayed for pain ;
It cannot be that Thou wilt scorn me now,
That thou hast let me toil and agonize in vain.
38 THE MYSTIC'S PR AVER.
Not martyrdom I crave, nor length of days ;
But grant me, I^ord, ere this frail form decays,
The perfect union that my soul has sought.
The ecstasy that knows nor prayer nor praise.
The raptured silence, unprofaned by thought.
No more wilt Thou in heavenly dreams aj)pL'ar,
\Mien of Thy mystic Essence I am ])art,
For mine own soul I see not, nor can hear
Even the pulsings of this fevered heart.
Fevered and weary ; but full calm is near ;
Almighty calm, in endless being blest.
Infinitude of life, too deep for aught save rest.
THE PILGRIM.
There was a land, where all men lived in dreams,
Where heaven was hid by vapours, grey or gold ;
Yet real seemed their life, as our life seems.
And lovers wooed, and merchants bought and sold ;
But e'en 'mid feast, and song, and soft caress.
Each heart was sore with utter weariness.
And some were rich, some miserably poor.
And each for other felt a dull contempt ;
And some were fools, of loftiest wisdom sure.
And some seemed wise, but no man knew he dreamt
If any woke, men shrank with angry fear.
Or smiling said, " What doth this dreamer here ?"
But at the last, one minstrel boy awoke.
And strove to rouse his fellows, but in vain ;
40 THE riLGRIM.
Till, strong and flushed with hope, away he broke,
And left them revelling in mirthful i)ain :
His hands were trembling from a last embrace,
Yet somewhat sternly smiled the youthful face.
His golden singing-robes were cast aside.
The roses all were shed, that wreathed his brow ;
No more 'mid guilty dreams might he abide.
Who in his heart had sworn a solemn vow
To find the ancient innocence again
In some far land unknown of weary men.
No kindred nature deemed his purpose good ;
The vision and the promise were his own :
High hills he climbed ; through many a tangled wood
He cut his way, in darkness and alone,
Or built a trembling bridge where wild waves tossed,
Or in a fragile boat the surges crossed.
On sandy plains he saw fair miraged lakes.
And oft he hungered, and was oft athirst ;
Through haunts of savage beasts and venomed snakes
He roamed, still bravest when the path was worst ;
THE PILGRIM. 41
Toiling for heedless kinsfolk unforgot,
For those delirious hearts, that knew him not.
But when he next shall speak, they must awake ;
Or if this last best triumph may not be,
Yet will he struggle, e'en for life's dear sake —
What lustre blinds him ? Has he strength to see
That primal Heaven on Earth, desired so long.
Won with no joy-burst, greeted with no song ?
Oh, glorious recompense for vanished youth.
For love untasted, for the silenced lyre !
This is indeed that ancient land of truth,
Nobler than thought, more lovely than desire :
The snow-crowned heights are girt with blossoms sweet,
And grass lies cool beneath his fevered feet.
But is there respite here for soul and flesh ?
Are yonder glades but homes of idle calm ?
This is no dreamland — here the wind blows fresh,
Lulling the sense with no voluptuous balm \
Full life inspires the pilgrim's heart and eyes
From yon bright waves, yon high unclouded skies.
42 THE riLGRIM.
Shall he not twine fresh garlands for his head,
And seek new singing.-robes of quaint device ?
Here roses blush, more delicately red
Than e'er he dreamed the flowers of Paradise,
And in this lovely land is plenteous store
Of gems and gold, more rich than once he wore.
Ah no ! Exulting 'neath yon radiant sky
For youth's forgotten songs he oft may yearn ;
But the unflinching hand, the wakeful eye,
Still tireless to their lonely task shall turn :
Ere his limbs fail, ere his strong heart be dumb,
Let him make plain the path, that all may come.
THE PANTHEIST'S SONG OF
IMMORTALITY.
Bring snow-white lilies, pallid heart-flushed roses,
Enwreathe her brow with heavy-scented flowers ;
In soft undreaming sleep her head reposes,
While, unregretted, pass the sunlit hours.
Few sorrows did she know — and all are over ;
A thousand joys — but they are all forgot :
Her life was one fair dream of friend and lover ;
And were they false — ah, well, she knows it not.
Look in her face, and lose thy dread of dying ;
Weep not, that rest will come, that toil Avill cease :
Is it not well, to lie as she is lying,
In utter silence, and in perfect peace ?
Canst thou repine that sentient days are numbered ?
Death is unconscious Life, that waits for birth :
So didst thou live, while yet thy embryo slumbered.
Senseless, unbreathing, e'en as heaven and earth.
44 SONG OF IMMORTALITY.
Then shrink no more from Death, though Life be
gladness,
Nor seek him, restless in thy lonely pain :
The law of joy ordains each hour of sadness,
And firm or frail, thou canst not live in vain.
What though thy name by no sad lips be spoken,
And no fond heart shall keep thy memory green ?
Thou yet shalt leave thine own enduring token.
For earth is not as though thou ne'er hadst been.
See yon broad current, hasting to the ocean.
Its ripples glorious in the western red :
Each wavelet passes, trackless ; yet its motion
Has changed for evermore the river bed.
Ah, wherefore weep, although the form and fashion
Of what thou seemest, fades like sunset flame ?
The uncreated Source of toil and passion,
Through everlasting change abides the same.
Yes, thou shalt die : but these almighty forces,
That meet to form thee, live for evermore :
They hold the suns in their eternal courses.
And shape the tiny sand-grains on the shore.
SONG OF IMMORTALITY. 45
Be calmly glad, thine own true kindred seeing
In fire and storm, in flowers with dew impearled ;
Rejoice in thine imperishable being,
One with the Essence of the boundless world.
LIGHT AT EVENTIDE.
Evil has brought forth good, but good in turn
Brings evil forth, and painfully we learn
The rich resulting harmony of life :
Triumphant glories, that most brightly burn.
Last not the longest ; for the worth of strife
Consists not in the crown the victors earn.
The man who truly strives can never fail ;
For though at set of sun
The battle is not won,
And he is left, despairing and alone ;
Yet through the gloom, when flesh and spirit (juail,
New radiance flashes, e'en to hope unknown.
He that can walk in darkness, will not slip
Although some bright surprise
At first may blind his eyes ;
The ancient glow comes back to heart and lip,
And tears remembered make his laughter wise.
LIGHT AT EVENTIDE, 47
Fresh love and joy, not seeking, he shall find,
While Truth at last her promised garland weaves,
Not of gay roses or green laurels twined,
But bright with scarlet berries, amber leaves.
In some fair glade he seems awhile to rest.
All Dead Sea fruits forgot ;
Wild songsters chant, wild breezes blow ;
His path is overgrown, his brow caressed
By blossoms, that he did not sow,
And foliage, that he tended not.
And what though once, in vain yet noble quest,
AVith burning feet and eyeballs dim,
He strove to scale volcanic heights of power ?
Since on the fertile terrace grew for him
Wisdom and Love, rich fruit and glorious flower.
BOOKS.
Oh, fatal fruits, nurtured with tears and blood !
To taste your richness, we have given youth.
Unshadowed mirth, and calm credulity ;
Your heavy perfume spoils the wild-flower scent
Wafted around us by the winds of heaven.
Ye steal the young delight, that was so sweet.
The simple, thoughtless joy in all things fair,
Ciiving instead a weary (questioning,
A striving for what cannot be attained,
A cloudy vision of the inner life.
We might have lingered in our paradise.
Hearing no music sadder than the notes
Of dreamy birds ; while Hope and Memory,
Still young and fair and gaily innocent,
Still undefiled by any touch of doubt.
Together trod the dewy meads of life.
Thus said I, in unreasoning complaint.
Bitterly railing on the friends I love
BOOKS. 49
Because their voice and sweet companionship
Must bring the grief that ever comes with joy.
My heart was full : each common sight and sound
Seemed fraught with mournful meaning ; and the earth
Was like a hopeless bride, bedecked in vain
With gems and flowers, for one who will not come.
What wonder I rebelled against the art
That taught me thus to think in metaphors,
And gave me reasons for my soul's unrest ?
For I remembered not that it had drawn
My higher nature forth, and given voice
To secret melody. I missed the truth
That knowledge is a greater thing than mirth.
And aspiration more than happiness.
MEMORY.
Precious glimpses through the future's curtain
He may catch, who sees the past unveiled ;
Else, in seeking for a goal uncertain.
Blindly groping, will and heart had failed.
What were love, its faded flowers uncherished ?
What were life, its bygone days forgot ?
Memory may live, when hope has perished ;
Hope were dead, if we remembered not.
All our past, in colours soft and tender,
Stretches backward, till it melts in night ;
While the future, robed in hazy splendour.
Shows us transient phantoms of delight ;
Glorified reflections of the present ;
Spirits of the days that once have been ;
Hopes of bright perfection, when life's crescent
Fills the orbed outline, dimly seen.
MEMORY. 51
Yesterday's delights will haunt to-morrow,
Subtle essences of vanished joys,
Till the spectre of remembered sorrow
Their ethereal witchery destroys.
Rays of memory have sunned our pleasure ;
In the self-same light regret will spring ;
Sorrow is man's burden, yet his treasure ;
Proves him servant, yet proclaims him king.
Sharpest anguish, meaner things besetting.
Finds a perfect and a swift relief :
Man alone, immortal, unforgetting
Wears the sombre coronal of grief.
In his heart a quenchless fire is burning,
Kindled ere his conscious life began :
Lord of restless thought and noble yearning
Reigns in loneliness the soul of man.
Yet the earth must yield him free communion,
Heights of heaven his daring hope must gain.
Till he joy in that eternal union
Which the struggling spirit may attain.
52 MEMORY.
Linking Past, and Present, and Hereafter
Man shall find a staff, where seems a rod
Solemn memories, that check his laughter,
Draw him nearer to the heart of God.
LIGHT-BORN SORROWS.
Hath Wisdom made thee weep ? Be yet more wise,
And sing for joy. The blind man, gaining sight,
Says haply, " Would I ne'er had seen the light !
This world is all so strange, my 'wildered eyes
Know nought of fair or foul : ah, dear content,
Ere any spectre came to me at night,
When, watched and soothed by unimagined skies,
My dreams were nought but music and sweet scent.
Now must I link to faithful touch and tone
A wondrous alien form, unloved, unknown.
And try to read the face that may be sweet
When I have learnt its language — not till then.
E'en if I shut my eyes, am blind again.
And strive, undoubting, that dear voice to greet.
To trust the hand, that still must guide my feet,
The phantom that I know not comes between ;
I must look up — I, who was blind from birth,
And conning wistfully her face and mien,
54 LIGHT-BORN SO KNOWS.
Interpret mystic features by clear voice,
Loving the song, must love the plumage too.
And make the rose's scent explain its hue :
Thus, keeping faith in beauty, I rejoice,
(Or hope for joy) in green fields, heavens blue,
In all my new-found plenty, felt as dearth.
In all enigmas of this visible earth."
Ah, think ye not, if that poor man be wise.
He will exult because his night is past.
Saying " Although it come to baffled eyes,
Yet light is good, and shall be sweet at last :
From this new face, that even now grows dear,
I shall but learn more richly cadenced love.
And all this foreign world, around, above.
Shall float like music to my inward ear ;
Amid all discords, through all thunder-strife.
My soul shall glory in perfected life."
ON THE MALVERN HILLS.
In pleasant shade I walk, while sunshine lies
On many a distant slope,
And far above me, gold-green summits rise,
Like steadfast towers of Hope.
My hands are full of wreathed bryony,
And bracken from the hill ;
And sated with the beauty that I see
My very heart is still.
Lonely I step o'er this elastic sod ;
All living things are dumb ;
But whispering of heights I have not trod
The mountain breezes come.
Only a little while my heart can rest,
A little while forget
The rugged paths to many a sun-lit crest
That must be mounted yet.
56 ON THE MALVERN HILLS.
Take, wild fresh winds, my fading flowers and fern ;
These joys I may not keep :
Sweet slumberous glade, farewell ! When I return,
It will be time for sleep.
JANUARY 2 8th, 1880.
No more I long for April's fitful sheen,
For little fluttering lives, that passed in June,
For leaves and flowers, by sad October lost ;
Since now in ecstasy mine eyes have seen
The rich blue heaven of a summer noon
O'er dazzling trees, thick-robed with mossy frost.
Amid the leafless hedge-rows jewel-twined.
Great trunks and boughs, not crystal-clad as they.
Like black majestic arches I behold ;
All wreathed and crowned with woven sprays, defined
In every tender shade of pearly grey.
And radiant white, that glitters into gold.
Around the mighty limbs all gnarled and bowed,
The oak-tree twigs are finely interlaced ;
The willows droop in bright cascades of foam.
Each distant tree, a white and feathery cloud.
The nearer branches, delicately traced,
And gleaming pure against the azure dome.
58 JANUARY 2Sth, i8So.
The winds are hushed — there comes no murmuring
breeze
To stir the poplar's lofty sun-lit cone,
Or myriad branchlets of the wide-spread beech :
Through this all-glorious temple of the trees,
As through the house of God, I walk alone ;
A silence, as of worship, is their speech.
SPRINGTIDE.
The silver birch, with pure-green flickering leaves,
Flooded by morn with golden light, rejoices.
And mingles with the kindred merriment
Of perfume-laden winds and happy voices :
No child of spring is lonely, but receives
Some subtle charm, by diverse beauty lent,
And with another life its own inweaves ;
E'en man's creative eyes win all their gain
From light, whose glory, but for him, were vain.
While bud the flowers, while May-tide sunshine beams,
Through all the world of mind and body streams
One constant rapture of melodious thought,
One fragrant joy, with summer promise fraught,
And one eternal love illumes the whole ;
For odour, light, and sound are truthful dreams,
Inspired by Nature in the human soul.
This fresh young life, whereof my own is part.
With boundless hope all earth and heaven fills ;
6o SPRINGTIDE.
The birds are waking music in my heart,
A voiceless chant, more sweet than they can sing ;
My thoughts are sunbeams ; all my being thrills
With that exultant joy whose name is Spring.
NOONDAY.
The deep enchantment of the summer-tide
Lay o'er the earth, and hill and valley dreamed,
And all the trees with light were glorified,
That through the half-transparent foliage gleamed.
The sunbeams brightly pierced the deep-red beech,
Kindling the sombre leaves to scarlet flame :
Like half-articulate, melodious speech,
The thousand murmurs of the noonday came.
All sounds were mingled in one dreamy tune ;
All joys were fused in one supreme delight :
No hope, no fear, profaned that lustrous noon.
Nor any dim forebodings of the night.
It was a poet's paradise of rest,
Where, for a season, heart and brain might sleep :
Not now by passion and by thought possessed.
Yet ripening golden grain, that they must reap.
62 NOONDA Y.
Grain to be harvested with anxious toil,
Winnowed and crushed, till fullest worth be won :
But first, in light and heat, the fruitful soil
Receives the inspiration of the sun.
And even night, with depth of mystic gloom.
And even Autumn, with its slow decay,
Bring no more solemn message than the bloom
And joyful splendour of a summer day.
To each grand thought, some beauteous form replies
The soul, exalted to its noblest height.
Grows, like the pure, illimitable skies,
The chosen home of Mystery and Light.
TWILIGHT.
The radiant colours in the west are paling ;
Fast fades the gold, and green, and crimson light,
And softly comes, each trivial object veiling.
The all-ennobling mystery of night.
This is the hour of thought and silent musing,
When poets' fancies tender buds unfold ;
Like the sweet primrose of the twilight, choosing
To spend on evening noonday's gift of gold.
These blossoms hide within their deep recesses
Treasures the wandering wind can never seize ;
Not all its inner wealth the flower confesses.
Nor gives its choicest perfume to the breeze.
What wizard's wand can charm the secret sweetness
From the fair prison, where it lies concealed ?
"What poet's lay can show in grand completeness
The inmost heart, by human speech revealed ?
64 TWILIGHT.
W(j twine the spell of rich harmonious numbers,
\\'e conjure up the graceful words in vain :
Our lighter fancies waken from their slumbers ;
Without a voice the noblest thoughts remain.
So dash the restless billows of the ocean,
But bring no tidings of the tranquil deep ;
Above, are endless tumult and commotion ;
Below, are silence and eternal sleep.
Beneath the realms that human skill discloses.
Where Life and Death have ceased their ancient
fight,
The deep foundation of the earth reposes,
A temple sacred to primaeval night.
In wild rejoicing, and in vengeful madness,
Men haste o'er vale and mountain, sea and shore,
But calmly, underneath their grief and gladness,
The earth's great secret lies for evermore.
Above, the sky with myriad stars is gleaming ;
Fair in their light the sleeping land appears ;
And yet that radiance, o'er the earth down-streaming.
Tells not the wonders of the distant spheres.
TWILIGHT. 65
And far beyond the realms of starlight glory
Are mysteries too high for Fancy's wing,
Nameless alike in science and in story
In all that sage can tell or poet sing.
As height and depth alike transcends our vision,
The human soul whence clearest lustre beams,
Has yet its Hades and its fields Elysian,
Revealed alone in symbols and in dreams.
For there are griefs, that none has ever spoken,
Joys, that no mortal tongue has power to tell ;
The silence of the soul must be unbroken
Till to the speech of earth we bid farewell.
( 66
YEARNING.
I MURMUR songs of past delight,
To tunes of present pain :
Around me is the empty night
That answers not again.
My thoughts were better told by tears,
And yet I scorn to weep :
Forgetting hopes, forgetting fears.
My eyes and heart shall sleep.
Yet must I see, in visions wild,
The joys I cannot gain,
And, like a little lonely child,
Stretch out my arms in vain.
CHANGED.
They told me she was still the same,
In form, and mind, and heart ;
With freshly-dawning joy I came,
And now in grief depart.
Still round the forehead, smooth and white,
The golden tresses twine.
The face is fair, the step is light.
As when I called her mine.
And yet the mouth that once I kissed
Is not the same as then ;
The smile of love I never missed
Comes not for me again.
More measured is the silver voice.
The words more fitly said ;
But while she speaks, I half rejoice
To feel my love is dead.
6S CHANGED.
The eyes are deeper than before,
And far more subtly sweet ;
And yet I pray that mine no more
Their altered glance may meet.
My dream is past. I loved a child,
The woman I resign ;
The world and she are reconciled,
And now she is not mine.
SIR LANCELOT'S BRIDE.
Soft blows the breeze, the sun shines bright,
The birds sing loud and gay ;
But from the castle on the height
Sounds forth a blither lay.
The hall is decked with flowerets fair,
The gates are opened wide,
To welcome home that youthful pair,
Sir Lancelot and his bride.
The lingering hours pass slowly by,
The blossoms droop and fade ;
And many a bright impatient eye
Looks down the rocky glade.
" Look forth, my son, adown the height,"
Outspeaks a harper old ;
" Methought I saw a helmet bright
Flash back the sunset's gold."
70 S/A' LANCELOT'S BRIDE.
" Sir Lancelot's band draw nigh, my sire,
Their hundred hehnets gleam,
And like a line of living fire
They ford the shallow stream.
" Hurrah ! hurrah ! they come, they come
But why so slow and sad ?
Why march they not to beat of drum,
With shouts and laughter glad ?
" Oh, sweet and sad their music streams,
In cadence low and long ;
More like a funeral dirge it seems
Than a gay bridal song."
" Look forth again," the old man said,
" Thy sight is strong and clear ;
What bear they on that narrow bed.
That looks so like a bier ?"
" I see the gleam of golden hair.
As slowly on they ride :
For weird in beauty, strangely fair,
They bring Sir Lancelot's bride.
SIR LANCELOT'S BE IDE. 71
" They bear her through the rocky dale ;
Methinks they sigh and weep :
My lady's cheek is deadly pale —
Oh, say, can that be sleep ?
" She lies in all her loveliness,
A fair yet awful sight ;
And that is not her bridal dress,
That gleams so ghastly white.
" The light falls on her lily cheek,
And on her golden head —
Oh, hush, or but in whispers speak :
Say not — that she is dead !
" Alas, alas ! in deep despair
Sir Lancelot's head is bowed :
He hides his face ; he cannot bear
To see the snow-white shroud."
Within the hall the flowerets fair
Ere now have drooped and died ;
Fit welcome to that mournful pair.
Sir Lancelot and his bride.
72 SIK LANCELOT'S BKLDE.
The morn shall come with brighter flowers,
The lark shall warble gay ;
But never more shall Lancelot's towers
Send forth a gladsome lay.
THE ABBOT
Slowly, with dream-like sadness, tolled
The monastery bell ;
The Abbot of those cloisters old
Lay dead within his cell.
The monks were gathered round his bed
Solemn and still they stood ;
The fearful presence of the dead
Awed that stern brotherhood.
They gazed upon his hoary head.
And on his noble brow ;
They saw the form whence life had fled—
Where was the spirit now ?
Strong will was his, a nature stern.
That loved nor wine nor gold :
Did youthful passion ever burn
Within that bosom cold ?
74 THE ABBOT.
The monks had loosed his rugged vest,
While yet alive he lay :
What saw they on that wasted breast
That gleamed so golden gay ?
No shining cross, no image fair,
Those eager brethren found ;
Only a tress of golden hair,
With a Ijlack ribbon bound.
They gazed upon that witness dumb,
That told of love and death ;
Some spake with scorn, with pity some,
But all with bated breath.
" Lay it again upon his breast,"
An ancient brother said ;
" His soul hath entered into rest ;
Judge not the silent dead.
" Long hath he lived a life apart
From every earthly snare ;
Yet who shall say what aching heart
Throbbed 'neath his shirt of hair ?
THE ABBOT. 75
" Blame not his long-enduring love,
Nor call it weak and vain,
But pray that he, in realms above,
May meet his bride again."
They buried him beneath the shade
Of cloisters grey and old ;
And near his silent heart they laid
That treasured lock of gold.
DAS IDEAL.
•'Denn sehet, das Reich Gottes ist inwendig in euch."
Luc. xvii. 21.
Meinem verehrten Freu.\de Herrn Dr. Lewins in
Dankbarkeit gewidmet.
IcH bin ein Sonnenkind, und strebe immer
Hinauf zum ew'gen Licht ;
Der Erdentag, der enge Wolkenschimmer
Stillt meine Sehnsucht nicht.
Geniigt es mir, auf Bergeshoh' zu wohnen,
Der scheuen Gemse gleich ?
Nein ! wo kein Adler schwebte, muss ich thronen,
Wie in der Ahnherrn Reich.
Zerreissen will ich die getraumten Schleier
Des Stoffs, des Raums, der Zeit,
Und mich ergiessen, frei und immer freier,
In die Unendlichkeit.
DAS IDEAL. 77
Nie soil es mir an Briidergeistern fehlen,
Wie hier im Liigenrauch ;
Das todte Weltall will ich selbst beseelen,
Mit leichtem Gotteshauch.
Der Wind verstarkt sich nur durch eignes Wehen,
Die That gebiert die Kraft :
Ich lu'n noch nicht. Erst kann der Mensch entstehen,
Wenn er als Gott erschafft.
Umsonst ! Was hilft's, dass sich der Wahrheit Funkeln
Zu vollem Tag vermehrt ?
Selbst auf dem Sonnenthron muss sich verdunkeln
Das Herz, das stets begehrt.
Wie sollt' ich laben mein verdurstet Wesen
Mit leerem, schwankem Schein ?
Nur an der Erde Brust kann ich genesen
Von scharfer Himmelspein.
Verzeih' mir, o Natur, das kind'sche Lallen,
Den rasenden Gesang :
Doch was bist Di/, als nur das Wiederhallen
Vom alten Seelenklang ?
78 DAS IDEAL.
I)er kiihne Dichtertraum ist nicht verloren,
Er war zu eng, zu bleich :
Nur in des Menschen Seele wird geboren
Das Erd- und Himmelreich.
THE LADY DOCTOR, Etc.
THE LADY DOCTOR.
Saw ye that spinster gaunt and grey,
Whose aspect stern might well dismay
A bombardier stout-hearted ?
The golden hair, the blooming face,
And all a maiden's tender grace
Long, long from her have parted.
A Doctor she — her sole delight
To order draughts as black as night,
Powders, and pills, and lotions ;
Her very glance might cast a spell
Transmuting Sherry and Moselle
To chill and acrid potions.
Yet if some rash presumptuous man
Her early life should dare to scan,
Strange things he might discover ;
For in the bloom of sweet seventeen
She wandered through the meadows green
To meet a boyish lover.
H
82 THE LADY DOCTOR.
She did not give him Jesuit's bark,
To brighten up his vital spark,
Nor ipecacuanha,
Nor chlorodyne, nor camomile,
But blushing looks, and many a smile,
And kisses sweet as manna.
But ah ! the maiden's heart grew cold,
Perhaps she thought the youth too bold,
Perhaps his views had shocked her ;
In anger, scorn, caprice, or pride.
She left her old companion's side
To be a Lady Doctor.
She threw away the faded flowers.
Gathered amid the woodland bowers.
Her lover's parting token :
If suffering bodies we relieve,
^Vhat need for wounded souls to grieve ?
Why mourn, though hearts be broken ?
She cared not, though with frequent moan
He wandered through the woods alone
Dreaming of past affection :
THE LADY DOCTOR. 83
She valued at the lowest price
Men neither patients for advice
Nor subjects for dissection.
She studied hard for her degree j
At length the coveted M.D.
Was to her name appended ;
Joy to that Doctor, young and fair,
With rosy cheeks and golden hair,
Learning with beauty blended.
Diseases man can scarce endure
A lady's glance may quickly cure,
E'en though the pains be chronic ;
Where'er that maiden bright was seen
Her eye surpassed the best quinine.
Her smile became a tonic.
But soon, too soon, the hand of care
Sprinkled with snow her golden hair.
Her face grew worn and jaded ;
Forgotten was each maiden wile,
She scarce remembered how to smile.
Her roses all were faded.
84 THE LADY DOCTOR.
And now, she looks so grim and stern,
We wonder any heart could burn
For one so uninviting ;
No gentle sympathy she shows,
She seems a man in woman's clothes,
All female graces slighting.
Vet blame her not, for she has known
The woe of living all alone,
In friendless, dreary sadness ;
She longs for what she once disdained,
And sighs to think she might have gained
A home of love and gladness.
ISIORAL.
Fair maid, if thine unfettered heart
Yearn for some busy, toilsome part,
Let that engross thee only ;
But oh ! if bound by love's light chain.
Leave not thy fond and faithful swain
Disconsolate and lonely.
THE OLD LOVE-LETTERS.
To-day I've discovered a treasure
Tied up with a ribbon of blue ;
That record of pain and of pleasure,
A packet of old billets-doux.
The note-paper, quite out of fashion.
The date of ten summers ago.
Recall the unreasoning passion
Of juvenile rapture and woe.
No face was so lovely as Minnie's,
I praised it in prose and in verse ;
Her curls were like piles of new guineas-
Alas, she had none in her purse !
I loved her for beauty and kindness,
I grieved when I fancied her cold.
But Cupid, quite cured of his blindness.
Now takes a good aim at the gold.
86 THE OLD LOVE-LETTERS.
To fair Lady Flora, the heiress,
I've offered my love and my life ;
Repenting of ancient vagaries,
I'll settle to wealth and a wife.
The heat of my boyhood is banished
Alike from my heart and my head ;
The comet for ever has vanished.
But fireworks will answer instead.
I've kept all my ardent effusions.
Appeal, protestation, and vow :
I'm cured of my youthful delusions.
And can't write such love-letters now.
The thing was excessively silly.
But then we were only eighteen.
And she was all rose-bud and lily,
And I was uncommonly green.
I'm happy to say she was fickle,
She blighted my love with a frown ;
It withered, ere Time with his sickle
Could cut the first blossoming down.
THE OLD LOVE-LETTERS. S7
We parted — how well I remember
That gloomy yet fortunate day !
It seemed like the ghost of December,
Aroused by the frolics of May.
I shook myself loose from her fetters —
(I did not express it so then) ;
'Twas well she returned me the letters,
For now I can use them again.
I am not afraid of detection,
I cast all my scruples away ;
The embers of former affection
Shall kindle the fire of to-day.
LOVE VERSUS LEARNING.
Alas, for the blight of my fancies !
Alas, for the fall of my pride !
I planned, in my girlish romances,
To be a philosopher's bride.
I pictured him learned and witty,
The sage and the lover combined.
Not scorning to say I was pretty.
Nor only adoring my mifid.
No elderly, spectacled Mentor,
But one who would worship and woo ;
Perhaps I might take an inventor,
Or even a poet would do.
And tender and gay and well-favoured.
My fate overtook me at last :
I saw, and I heard, and I wavered,
I smiled, and my freedom was past.
LOVE VERSUS LEARNING.
He promised to love me for ever,
He pleaded, and what could I say ?
I thought he must surely be clever.
For he is an Oxford M.A.
But now, I begin to discover
My visions are fatally marred ;
Perfection itself as a lover,
He's neither a sage nor a bard.
He's mastered the usual knowledge,
And says it's a terrible bore ;
He formed his opinions at college,
Then why should he think any more ?
My logic he sets at defiance.
Declares that my Latin's no use,
And when I begin to talk Science
He calls me a dear little goose.
He says that my lips are too rosy
To speak in a language that's dead.
And all that is dismal and prosy
Should fly from so sunny a head.
90 LOVE VERSUS LEARNING.
He scoffs at each grave occupation,
Turns everything off with a pun ;
And says that his sole calculation
Is how to make two into one.
He says Mathematics may vary,
Geometry cease to be true,
But scorning the slightest vagary
He still will continue to woo.
He says that the sun may stop action.
But he will not swerve from his course ;
For love is his law of attraction,
A smile his centripetal force.
His levity's truly terrific,
And often I think we must part,
But compliments so scientific
Recapture my fluttering heart.
Yet sometimes 'tis very confusing,
This conflict of love and of lore —
But hark ! I must cease from my musing,
For that is his knock at the door !
MOONLIGHT AND GAS.
The poet in theory worships the moon,
But how can he Hnger, to gaze on her Hght ?
With proof-sheets and copy the table is strewn,
A poem Hes there, to be finished to-night.
He silently watches the queen of the sky.
But orbs more prosaic must dawn for him soon —
The gas must be lighted ; he turns with a sigh,
Lets down his Venetians and shuts out the moon.
"This is but a symbol," he sadly exclaims,
" Heaven's glory must yield to the lustre of earth ;
More golden, less distant, less pure are the flames
That shine for the world over sorrow and mirth.
When Wisdom sublime sheds her beams o'er the night,
I turn with a sigh from the coveted boon.
And choosing instead a more practical light
Let down my Venetians and shut out the moon."
92
MOONLIGHT AND GAS.
He sits to his desk and he mutters " Alas,
My muse will not waken, and yet I must write !"
But great is Diana : Venetians and gas
Have not been sufficient to banish her quite.
She peeps through the blinds and is bright as before,
He smiles and he blesses the hint opportune.
And feels he can still, when his labour is o'er,
Draw up his Venetians and welcome the moon.
THE TWO ARTISTS.
" Edith is fair," the painter said,
" Her cheek so richly glows.
My palette ne'er could match the red
Of that pure damask rose.
" Perchance, the evening rain-drops light,
Soft sprinkling from above,
Have caught the sunset's colour bright,
And borne it to my love.
" In distant regions I must seek
For tints before unknown,
Ere I can paint the brilliant cheek
That blooms for me alone."
All this his little sister heard.
Who frolicked by his side ;
To check such theories absurd.
That gay young sprite replied :
94 THE Tiro JA'T/STS.
" Oh, I can tell you where to get
That pretty crimson bloom,
For in a bottle it is set
In Cousin Edith's room.
" I'm sure that I could find the place,
If you want some to keep ;
I watched her put it on her face —
She didn't see me peep !
" So nicely she laid on the pink,
As well as jou could do,
And really, I almost think
S/ie is an artist, too."
The maddened painter tore his hair,
And vowed he ne'er would wed,
And never since, to maiden fair,
A tender word has said.
Bright ruby cheeks, and skin of pearl.
He knows a shower may spoil.
And when he wants a blooming girl
Paints one himself in oil.
MAIDEN MEDITATION.
" I'll don my kerchief blue," she said,
" And wear my Sunday gown.
For every morn, with Hghtsome tread
A youth goes by to town.
" And ever as he passes by,
Methinks he walks more slow,
And glances up, with wistful eye,
To where I sit and sew.
" And sometimes, with a tender sound
He whistles soft and low ;
How can that gentle youth have found
That I love music so ?
" His flashing eyes reveal his soul,
They are so very bright ;
And ever in his button-hole
He sticks a lily white.
96 MAIDEN MEDITATION.
" He never dons a flaunting rose,
But always wears the same ;
Perhaps it is because he knows
That Lily is wv name !
" I'll wear a wreath of lilies white
Methinks, when I'm a bride —
Oh, here he comes, with footstep light-
But — who walks at his side ?
" It's some one in a scarlet shawl ;
Perhaps he calls her fair.
But / don't think she's nice at all :
I hate that yellow hair !
" How can he walk with such a fright ?
Oh dear, what shall I do ?
He's given her that blossom white !
Is her name Lily too ?
" But now I look at him, he seems
Less handsome than before ;
His eyes have lost their radiant gleams,
His voice is sweet no more.
MAIDEN MEDITATION. 97
" His hair, methinks, is getting red,
His nose less straight appears :
I could not such a creature wed,
Though he should sue for years !
" And other youths for me may sigh,
And I may love again,
But never, never more will I
Watch at the window-pane !"
LAMENT OF THE CORK-CELL.*
Farewell, oh mocking Wind ! No more I mix
Thine airy substance with my world, the Tree :
Farewell, oh Carbon, that I cannot fix,
And Oxygen, that I no more set free !
They tell me I have helped the trunk to grow,
The roots to suck the earth, the boughs to fork.
The fruits to ripen — well, it may be so.
But I am dying, and shall soon be cork.
Dead, sapless cork ! yet I remember still
My moist and merry life in windy March ;
How green I was ! how full of chlorophyll !
But soon it shrivelled, leaving only starch.
* Towards the end of summer, the cells immediately beneath
the epidermis of a young shoot usually become converted into
cork. Their green colour is changed to brown, and the walls are
rendered almost impervious to water, so that vital functions are no
longer possible.
LAMENT OF THE CORK- CELL. 99
Blest epoch ! when transparent and elastic,
My membrane scarce restrained its endoplast,
When, homogeneous, semi-fluid, plastic,
My vital molecules rotated fast.
Dry as I am, I once was young and tender,
Alive with chemic yearnings ; then, alas !
What thoughtless joy was mine, in spring tide splen-
dour,
'J'o decompose carbonic acid gas !
•Oh, had I sunk to inorganic slumber,
And left the atoms to their gaseous glee !
The greatest pleasure of the greatest number
My life may serve — but what is that to me ?
Backward I look, as o'er a fearful chasm.
To days when I rejoiced to live and grow ;
Now less and less becomes my protoplasm,
My nucleus divided long ago.
My wall grows thicker, dryer — oh to issue
From this dark prison, where compressed I dwell,
To live, no more a part of any tissue,
But a primordial protoplasmic cell !
100 LAMENT OF THE CORK-CELL.
A cell amoeboid, drifting from its mother,
Naked and houseless in the cruel storm.
Having no aid of sister or of brother,
Nor any cellulose to keep it warm ;
Yet having freedom ! Nay, the dream I banish,
The time of cell-division long is past ;
Slowly and surely, all my contents vanish.
My walls are waterproof — I'm cork at last !
SIX YEARS OLD.
They've left me alone in the garden,
So I'll talk to that dear little wren —
Mr. Beetle ! I do beg your pardon,
I was very near killing you, then.
I'll tell you a tale, Mrs. Robin,
Please do not be frightened at all —
A tale about Neddy and Dobbin —
She's gone ! she's flown over the wall !
That wall must be very old — maybe
They're the children of Israel's bricks ;
It was built before I was a baby.
And now — only think — I am six !
Six years old ! What a beautiful swallow.
Catching flies ! How I wish he could speak !
He's gone down to that house in the hollow ;
I went there to dinner last week.
SIX YEAJiS OLD.
I could stay in that garden for ever,
And make friends with the beeches and Hmes
I saw Dr. Jones — he's so clever ;
He writes to the papers sometimes !
He looked at me hard through his glasses,
And said, " Now make plenty of noise,
Have a regular romp with my lasses.
And be petted and teased by the boys."
He said that my curls wanted rumpling,
My cheeks should be red and not pink.
He called me a sweet little dumpling —
He's very insulting, I think.
'Twas Nurse that had made me so tidy.
And how can I help being small ?
He gave me some roses on Friday ;
Perhaps he is nice, after all.
I stayed with the children till seven ;
They're kind, but so dreadfully rough !
There were ten of them— I made eleven —
We played Tick, French and English, and Buff.
SIX YEARS OLD. 103
The girls are as bad as their brothers,
They teased me, and played me such tricks !
But Maude isn't rude like the others,
She says I look older than six.
She showed me her dog and her kittens.
And the birds, and the fish in the pool :
She crochets her scarves and her mittens,
And goes to Miss Trimmington's school.
She mustn't make blunders or stammer,
Or stoop when she sits on the bench ;
She knows History, Science, and Grammar,
Geography, Tables, and French.
She takes pepper and mustard at dinner,
She may ask for plum-pudding again :
I wish I were taller and thinner,
I wish — how I tvish — I were ten !
She has brothers and sisters — a dozen-
And Rover, and Pussy, and Poll ;
But I haven't even a cousin,
I've only Mamma, and my doll.
104 SIX YEARS OLD.
Papa's out all day in the City,
And I'm often in bed when he comes :
He's so tired and so grave — what a pity !
When will he have finished his sums ?
I wish there were more of us, only
It's nice to play just what I please ;
And when I am mopish and lonely
I always can talk to the trees.
Mamma says, " Sweet flowers will not tarry,
But trees are companions for life."
I wish that great lime-tree could marry.
With me for his dear little wife !
Sometimes, when I shoot at the sparrows
(I don't want to hit them, they know),
I peel his small twigs for my arrows,
And bend a strong branch for my bow.
If he died, oh, how much I should miss him !
(It's only his dry sticks I peel)
I put my arms round him and kiss him.
And sometimes I think he can feel.
SIX YEARS OLD. 105
Those beautiful green caterpillars
Live here, that Nurse cannot endure ;
And the birds — cruel butterfly-killers !
But they don't know it's wrong, I am sure.
I make tales about flying and creeping,
About branches, and berries, and flowers ;
And at night, when I ought to be sleeping,
I wake and lie thinking for hours.
I keep quiet, that Nurse may not scold me,
And think, while the stars twinkle bright,
Of the tales that Aunt Mary has told me,
And wonder — who comes here at night ?
I fancy the fairies make merry.
With thorns for their knives and their forks
They have currants for bottles of sherry.
And the little brown heads are the corks.
A leaf makes the tent they sit under,
Their ball-room's a white lily-cup :
Shall I know all about them, I wonder.
For certain, when I am grown up ?
I06 S/X YEARS OLD.
Far over the seas and the mountains
There's a wonderful country of light ;
My new home — full of castles and fountains ;
My Dolly goes there every night.
I've seen it in dreams — there are plenty
Of birds and beasts, talking in verse ;
I shall take Mamma there when I'm twenty,
And Papa, and Aunt Mary, and Nurse.
Papa will look glad, when I show him
Such new and such beautiful things ;
He'll be pleased when I write my grand poem.
And paint a bright angel with wings.
I'll swim, with a mermaid and merman.
Through the seas and the ocean so broad ;
I'll learn French, and Italian, and German,
And soon be as clever as Maude.
I'll often have tea at Aunt Mary's,
With marmalade — orange and quince
I'll visit the queen of the fairies,
And then T will marry a prince.
SONNETS,
{ I09 )
JANUARY, 1879.
With bounding heart, with eyes and cheeks aglow,.
Not caring how the frost may stab and sting,
I haste along, where leafless branches fling
Their clear blue shadows o'er the sun-lit snow.
For though I count sad Winter as my foe.
Within my heart I can create the Spring,
Can hear sweet music, ere the thrushes sing.
And see white flowers, before the pear-buds blow.
These homely scenes, whence first my childish eye
Its own ideal form of beauty chose,
I love for ever ; leaves and blossoms die.
But this ethereal image lingers yet ;
And if I grieved, I could but grieve for those
\Vho know not spring, or having known, forget.
( no )
TO A HYACINTH IN JANUARY.
Sweet household hyacinth, whose dainty breath
Steals through my spirit like an April dream !
Each day I watch another snowy gleam,
That dawns and brightens through thine emerald
sheath :
The encircling air, the water from beneath,
The fireside glow, the pallid noon-day beam,
Arise transfigured in thy white raceme.
Safe from the New Year's wind, whose touch were
death.
The bells of Spring are not so sweet and fair,
For they with wind and rain and hail must cope,
That all too soon their tender life destroy ;
But thou, warm sheltered from the frosty air,
Art like some delicate and hidden hope.
More full and fragrant than the promised joy.
( III
TO THE FIRST SNOWDROP.
Fair, sunny-hearted child of many tears !
Thou, while thy mother Earth forsaken slept,
Didst gather to thyself pure hopes, that crept
Through stormy dreams ; and now the sun appears,
White buds reflect each rare faint smile, that cheers
The home where thine unshapen germ was kept,
Safe in deep midnight, while the heavens wept,
Or hung the shuddering trees with frosty spears.
Now springs to life and light each buried joy,
With broken music and with tearful glow.
With drooping blossoms, winter-pale and coy ;
For Love shall soon fulfil her long desire —
Her face and breast are memories of snow,
Her heart, like thine, is lit with vestal fire.
( 112 )
MARCH, 1878.
The blackbird sits and pipes his love-notes clear
In yon dark tracery of budding sprays,
Sharply defined against the distant haze,
But soon 'mid fresh green leaves to disappear :
Now soft, now keen, the wind breathes hope and fear,
While with unsheltered almond flowers it plays :
The skies are sad, remembering winter days.
But birds and blossoms know that Spring is here.
I, too, foresee her glory, and rejoice ;
Though to my heart she comes in wintry guise,
Dark-robed, slow-stepping ; for in eye and voice
Are promises of music and of light.
And I can wait till smiles shall come for sighs.
And golden hues for grey, and bloom for blight.
MARCH, 1879.
Ye little birds, that chant your love so loud,
Your careless hearts are not so glad as mine,
For he who sings because the sun doth shine
Is robbed of joy by every murky cloud ;
And ye, sweet heralds of the summer crowd
Of unremembered flowers, whose tints combine
To light the meadows — ye grow pale and pine,
When by cold winds your radiant heads are bowed.
From you, from all fair creatures of the earth,
I do but gain the beauty that I give ;
Your form, your music, in my soul have birth,
And in my very life your colours live ;
And when the sunlight fades, and ye depart,
I hold your joy within my secret heart.
( 114
APRIL, 1879.
Clear, golden, soft, the spring-tide sunshine beams,
With tranquil splendour piercing grove and
dingle,
As though bright morning, noon, and eve could
mingle
In some eternal home of daylight dreams ;
Even as though this radiance were not fleeting.
But shone for ever from the slumbering skies,
Calming with tender light impassioned eyes,
And sleepless brain, and heart too strongly beating.
Yet cold March winds prepared these breezes warm,
xVnd heralded this glow of April weather.
And soon dim flakes of cloud will float together,
Till earth be sad once more with rain and storm ;
For all fresh glory must be born of strife.
And still perfection were but death in life.
115
MAY, 1879.
At last, coy Spring, concede one festal day
To us who yearn thy beauty to behold ;
These pallid leaves, that peer above the mould.
Perfume and brighten ; lanes and woods array
With hawthorn, that was wont to bloom in May,
White-petalled, crimson-anthered ; lilies cold,
With drooping bells that hide their central gold,
And sun-bright buttercups and cowslips gay.
Long have we listened to a song of death.
That wild winds chant o'er living seeds en-
tombed :
Sing thou of life ; inspire us with thy breath ;
Transfuse thy lustre e'en through clouds and
showers ;
Our hearts shall glow, like dells by thee illumed.
Whose shadows are but images of flowers.
ii6 )
STRATFORD-ON-AVON, MAY 14TH, 1880.
The grey old church is solemn in the sheen
Of noonday — half its reverend beauty won
From that blind, silent, lifeless denizen
Who sleeps within ; whose living soul is seen
In tall and arching lindens, freshly green,
AVith light leaves golden-twinkling in the sun :
In all sweet May-tide joyance, new begun,
That sings or blooms where frost and snow have been :
And in the rippling, daisy-bordered river.
That flashes back the joy of (lod and man.
And whispers to fresh hearts, that wake and
quiver.
Such melodies, as round young Shakespeare wove
Their spells, while near his feet the Avon ran,
Changeful, yet changeless, e'en as life and love.
( 117
IN THE LANES BETWEEN STRATFORD
AND SHOTTERY, MAY 14TH, 1880.
Through dreamful meads, that still his spirit keep,
Roamed the boy-poet, when the morn was young.
And listened while the skylark's mirth out-rung.
Though his own heart was warbling strains more
deep ;
And 'mid half-wakened king-cups, thought of sleep
More sweet than theirs, that waited till he sung.
And bade it flee ; then to his eyes there sprung
Such gladsome tears, as waking, she might weep.
Here with his Love he wandered to and fro.
Yet 'mid his utmost passion of desire.
High hopes, deep thoughts, had room to live and
grow;
Here, while he mused of old heroic strife,
His blood leapt through his veins, a fount of fire,
And all his nature glowed with boundless life.
ii8 )
SUNSHINE.
Come, tender sunlight of the spring, and shine
Through all my thoughts ; my inmost being fill,
Teaching my heart to glow, and yet l)e still.
With that victorious quiet which is thine.
Oh that my hand had cunning to combine
The tints wherewith thou robest copse and hill !
But I, so rich in love, am poor in skill,
And praise fair Truth, yet may not build her shrine.
But every spirit, worshipping aright,
Must glory in the gifts that others bring ;
So would I triumph — not as one apart,
But with the kindred throng who love the light,
Joying in beauty that transcends my art,
And mutely dreaming notes I cannot sing.
( "9 )
IN THE GARDEN.
Sweet sounds, and scents, and colours join to woo
My musing heart to love and reverence ;
A tender and a subtle influence
Comes from each graceful form, each brilliant hue ;
Strange power have they, my spirit to imbue
With thoughts above themselves ; for e'en while
sense
Adores the Beautiful with joy intense.
The soul, far gazing, only seeks the True.
And ye, fair flowers, translating to my sight,
In gold or blue the pure uncoloured beams,
Are poets and revealers of the light ;
Soon is your message told, your life-work done.
For all your tints are only passing dreams
Of the eternal splendour of the sun.
YELLOW ROSES.
My sweet sun-tinted roses, faint and fair
As morning twilight ! though ye soon must fade,
Still shall ye bloom for me. I will not braid
Soft leaves and fragile blossoms in my hair.
But for a few bright hours, with loving care
I strive to paint the golden light and shade
Wherein each curling petal is arrayed.
And the translucent green your leaf-sprays wear.
So would I keep sweet hopes, that else might die,
And fragrant fancies, withering too fast.
All fresh delight in earth, and sea, and sky,
And the deep joy, so near akin to grief ;
That from the slumberous garden of the past
1 may not lose one sun-reflecting leaf.
JULY, 1878.
Like waves that rise and fall, the morning sheen
Glows between quivering leaves, which fain would
fling
Their dust and blight to breezes, murmuring
Sweet May-time legends 'mid the sombre green.
Alas for wistful eyes, that have not seen
The promised loveliness : for changeful Spring
Has quickly passed, and summer does but bring
Scorched buds and flowers, that tell what might have
been.
The trees are dark against the tender blue ;
A deeper shade has bronzed the purple beech.
But even yet, the red leaves bud anew :
And thus, 'mid barren splendours of July,
Fresh, brilliant hopes burst forth in glowing speech,
And light some pensive heart before they die.
( i;
SUNSET.
Thk sun is setting — not in colours gay,
But pure as when he blazed with noonday heat ;
The upland path is gold before my feet,
Save where long, dancing, poplar-shadows play,
Or arching lindens cast a broader gray :
This radiant hour, when peace and passion meet.
Stirs with tumultuous breezes, freshly sweet.
The odorous languor of an August day.
Above is peace ; below is gleeful strife ;
Aflame with sunshine, battling with the wind,
The trees rejoice in plenitude of life :
A sea of light is sleeping in the west.
Untroubled light, o'erflowing heart and mind
^Vith that empyreal ra[)ture, which is rest.
SEPTEMBER, 1880.
To still September comes a dream of joy :
The breath of dying roses in the calm
And sultry air, seems changed to hyacinth-balm ;
Fresh beams and breezes waken, such as toy
\Vith amorous wind-flowers and May-lilies coy :
Raise, oh ye birds, a wild conjubilant psalm !
Autumn has reached the goal, has gained the palm.
And Winter comes not surely to destroy.
Nay, prosperous Autumn ! not for thee shall ope
May's blossoms ; nor for thy dull ear shall sing
Her choir of birds ; thine own winds whirl away
Thy golden vapours, and thy rich decay,
Till Winter come, stern pioneer of Spring,
Renewing Earth by terror and by hope.
( 124 )
SONGS BEFORE DAYBREAK.
The birds are singing, though it is not morn,
Though in the east no rays of glory shine :
Made clear by hope, their eyes and hearts divine
That in the dusky twilight, day is born.
"I'rusting they carol, though the heavens warn
Their fearless joy with many a threatening sign ;
Though, still untinged with gold, the clouds com-
bine.
While moans the rain-fraught wind, a voice forlorn.
Yes, wake me with your warbling, happy birds,
That I may feel, before I see, the day ;
That I may muse of hope, while in my heart
The notes translate themselves in gladsome words :
E'en plashing rain-drops mingle with your lay,
And in its harmony the wind has part.
( 125
THE SEED.
No light of sun or moon can reach the seed
That bUndly in the bosom of a flower
Ripens through summer, till its living power
Breaks the frail clasp that held it, and is freed :
Yet not with new-found sunshine can it feed
The embryo life, that lighted but an hour
Waits long in utter night its glorious dower :
Cold grows the earth, and spring-time shall not speed.
Not as when warm in fragrant gloom it lay,
But Hving hopeless, tombed in frost-bound sod.
Now seems it poorer than the Ufeless clod.
That lies above it, open to the day :
Yet Night shall keep her own, and lose not one,.
And every child of Day shall find the sun.
126 )
OCTOBER, 1879.
Through all the dolorous year mine eyes have sought
The ever-living loveliness that cleaves
Even to dim grey skies and rain-bent sheaves ;
Still is my garden with such beauty fraught,
And bright azaleas flash me back my thought ;
Their sunny flowers are fallen, but the leaves
Flame gold and scarlet, and my heart receives
Delight more full than spring or summer brought.
And I can twine a rich October crown
With branchlets of the golden-tressed birch,
<keen cedar plumes, and beech-leaves ruddy brown,
And woodbine gems, of jiure translucent red ;
Even some lonely flowers may cheer my search,
.'Sweet as new joys that spring when hope is dead.
127
NOVEMBER, 1878.
The sky is dim and silent ; lost are mirth,
Colour, and motion ; e'en the winds are dumb,
Save for a constant, faint, unchanging hum,
That seems the voice of the despairing earth.
The birds are pining in this wintry dearth ;
The trees, that rang with carols frolicsome,
Show dead black branches, fringed with white,
whence come
No whispered hopes of any future birth.
And yet to me, the season still is fair.
Though things of joy so sad and cold become ;
Majestic stand the trunks and branches bare,
Their lace-like twigs half-seen, half-hid with snow :
One frost-bit flower, a red chrysanthemum
Tells of the hidden store of life below.
I2S )
DECEMBER, 1879
Now is the Earth at rest from sun and storm ;
And stripped of all her gems and vestures gay,
(xives thanks to Heaven, while weaklings can but
pray :
In germs of life, uncouth of hue and form,
She feels the glory of the summer swarm,
And knows December not less rich than May ;
For she is young as on her primal day,
And still beneath the snow her heart is warm.
All flowers and fruits are folded in her breast.
Waiting but fuller radiance from above ;
And she lies dreaming of her destined hour,
All white and still, most like a soul at rest.
Rich in hid wealth, and strong in secret power.
Silent with joy, and pure with perfect love.
129 )
UNDISCERNED PERFECTION.
Beyond the realm of dull and slumberous Night
I long have wandered with unwearied feet ;
The land where Poetry and Science meet
Streaks the far distance with a magic light :
Fair visions glide before my dazzled sight,
And shine, and change, and pass with motion fleet,
But never clear, and steadfast, and complete
In one transcendent brilliancy unite.
I know, the seeming discord is but mine ;
The glory is too great for mortal eyes,
All powerless to discover the divine
And perfect harmony of earth and skies :
I know that each confused and tortuous line,
To fuller sight, in true perspective lies.
( I30 )
THE PAINTER TO THE MUSICIAN.
Oh, sing once more, nor think your subtle spells
Are vainly woven for a nature cold.
Although I kneel not at the shrine of gold
Wherein the spirit of your Avorship dwells :
For when your voice in tones impassioned swells,
The hosts of Dreamland are by you controlled,
And secrets higher than my words unfold
Even to me the perfect music tells.
And your devotion is akin to mine,
Though I give praise in colour, you in song ;
The self-same goddess, in another shrine.
Counts me among the servitors who throng
Her outer courts : to Poesy divine
Our noblest work, our deepest thoughts, belong.
{ 131 )
SPEECH AND SILExNCE.
When some sweet voice flows forth in foreign speech,
The soul shines through the words, and malves them
clear,
And all we see interprets all we hear,
For smiles and frowns have wondrous power to teach :
And voiceless grief our inmost heart can reach,
With calm, deep gaze, too sad for hope or fear :
Our eyes are wet for those who shed no tear,
And lips that Death has silenced, yet may preach.
In stillness we must win our deepest lore.
Or 'mid the speechless chant of earth and sea :
Truth is a spirit, bodiless and free ;
Imaged in words, 'tis perfect truth no more,
For all our lofty visions fade and flee.
And song begins, when ecstasy is o'er.
( Ij- )
BEAUTY.
Etkrnal Beauty, Truth's interpreter,
Is bound by no austere ccsthetic creed ;
All forms of art she uses at her need,
And e'en unlovely things are slaves to her :
And we, whose hearts her lightest breath can stir,
Must prize her flowers, whoe'er has sown the seed,
And love each noble picture, song, or deed,
Whose soul is true, although the form should err.
She is (lod's servant, iDut the queen of man,
^^'ho fondly dreams she lives for him alone.
And while her power is felt through time and space,
Proclaims her priestess of some petty clan.
Catching but transient glimpses of a face
Veiled in rich vestures, loved but still unknown..
( 133
THE MYSTERY OF LIGHT.
Light, glorious and eternal, that reveals
All earthly things, itself is secret still ;
Love, silent king of heart, and mind, and will,
Li lustrous mystery his power conceals ;
And many a clouded spirit dumbly feels,
But knows not, sees not yet, those truths that fill
With beauty and with joy the dwellings chill
Even of Life that wounds, of Death that heals.
Yet Light, and Love, and Truth are all our own,
And minister to us, who know them not ;
Fair hopes, that look like memories, will throng
E'en hearts that live in darkness and alone,
And seem to chant some half-remembered song,
The notes recalled, the lovely words forgot.
( 134 )
ILLUSIONS.
Not in the heavens alone is Truth renowned :
Sad human hearts, that seem to love her less,
Even in mutiny her power confess :
We speak in fables, and are compassed round
With poesy, distilling song from sound.
Colour from light, and hope from happiness ;
Subliming weakness, yearning, and distress,
To that high faith wherewith our life is crowned.
All fair deceits are prophets of the truth.
E'en as the desert mirage tells a tale
Of palms and wells, real, though far away :
The star-bright hopes that light the world's dim youth
Are not too brilliant, but too silvery pale,
To sparkle still, when dawns the golden day.
( 135 )
DAY-DREAMS.
Full oft through some enchanted land I tread,
Wherein can live no hatred, pain, or fear.
Where all the heavens with Truth's own light are
clear.
And Love's own tints o'er all the earth are spread ;
Where, through illumined foliage overhead,
Swift, bright-winged birds will flash and disappear,
While murmuring voices from the leaves I hear.
Repeating all my heart in secret said.
Not there I dwell, and yet my home is there ;
Those flower-grown paths I trod, a lonely child,
Breathing with simple joy the fragrant air :
Lured on by half-seen beauty even then,
With restless feet I roamed from hill to glen,
By gleaming birds, by whispering leaves beguiled.
( 136
MORNING TWILIGHT.
There is a time, when all the heart is dumb,
Too tired for dread of ill, or hope of good ;
A\'hen o'er dull brain and heavy eyelids brood
Shades of dead grief, endured and overcome.
Whose ghostly presence lingering doth benumb
The constant soul, that gazed with hardihood
On living evil : in this twilight mood
Even the sun and wind are wearisome.
Yet is their flickering strife but joy begun ;
For e'en the spectral shades grow faintly bright.
Like night-born mist, half kindled by the sun :
Then shut not out the breeze, nor bar the light ;
Full noon shall glow for him, who will not shun
Heaven's dazzling joy-break, though tears cloud his
sight.
( 137 )
SEMELE.
For her who loves a God, all hope must die
Of sweet familiar joys, that daily move
A woman's soul ; of gentle cares, that prove
Her free devotion ; of the answering eye,
Where speaks the heart, and hears each mute reply :
Yes, these and more she lacks ; yet far above
That earthly home, expands her heaven of love.
And he she worships glows in sea and sky.
She whom the Sun has wooed — for whom his rays
Have shone but once, unclouded — well may wait
Through blackest night ; her hope is one with fate
Let me behold thee, Zeus ! Dispel the haze
That shields too tenderly my mortal sight :
If life be darkness, let it cease in light.
( 138 )
THE PRIKSrS FRAVKR.
Have pity, Lord ! Let me not die alone !
Though once I dared my fellow-souls to shrive,
/ am unclean ; with pangs of death I strive.
Alas, what healing balm to me was known
For every heart that made its fevered moan !
But now that / am sick, who shall revive
My hopeless faith, or save my soul alive,
Since that elixir fails, which was mine own ?
Spirit of God, Who dwellest e'en in me,
Who speakest even by this doubtful breath,
Whether for good or ill Thou set me free.
Withhold not Truth, although its price be Death
I faint, I die, in scorching plains accurst,
Let me drink hemlock, if it slake my thirst !
( 139 )
WEARINESS.
Tp:ll me no more, I must not fear to die ;
Ye waste your words ; not death, but life I dread :
Oh, to be numbered with the tranquil dead !
For I am tired ; I do but crave to lie
Under the turf ; only for rest I cry ;
And yet ye bid me turn my weary head.
And on the scroll that hangs beside my bed
Read of another life, a home on high.
'Tis strange to think I once had power to cope
With those who hate the Christ, and scorn His
word ;
Sore were my wounds ; my triumphs, oh, how few !
But now, at last, my prayer for sleep is heard :
Forgive me. Lord ! Thy promises are true.
And yet I have not strength enough to hope.
140
THE AGNOSTIC'S I'SAi.M.
Oh Thou, who art the life of heaven and earth,
Eternal Substance of all things that seem ;
Or but the glorious phantom of a dream
That in the brain of mortal man has birth :
To know that Thou dost live were little worth,
Not knowing Thee ; yet oft the heart will deem
That through its inmost deeps Thy light doth stream,
Bestowing peace for grief, calm joy for mirth.
E'en thus rich music enters tuneless ears,
Tuneless, and all untrained by ordered notes ;
Yet its ethereal essence inward floats,
And mingling with the secret source of tears.
Awhile endues the spirit's wistful sight
With dim perceptions of unknown delight.
( 141 )
TO AMY, ON RECEIVING HER
PHOTOGRAPH.
When of some lovely landscape unforgot
A shadowy sketch I see, my thought divines
Clear sunshine gleaming through the pencilled lines,,
And cool green shade, where seems a shapeless blot :
I know how morning pierced that sheltered grot,
How noonday glowed between the tufted pines ;
And even so, your cold grey portrait shines
With tints unseen by those who know you not.
The)- cannot see the apple-blossom cheek,
The eyes of ;midnight blue, the sun-lit hair ;
Cirave are the lips, and will not smile or speak :
And yet to me the pictured face is fair :
I conned that May-tide bloom when last we met,
And all the eye saw then, the heart sees yet.
( 142 )
STARLKiHT. I.
Night works like Time : hushed is the busy street ;
(irey are the walls, whose yet untarnished red
(jlared in the sun ; for shadows overspread
All hues of earth, that wearied eyes may meet
The restful heavens ; that mortal hearts may greet
Eternal truth : while darksome paths I tread,
The light of other worlds is round me shed.
The glow of distant oeons guides my feet.
The silent stars my ecstasy control ;
No daring hopes, no awe-struck fears intrude
Upon the calm rejoicing of the soul :
From sun to sun, from age to age I climb,
Until for Space I see Infinitude,
And feel Eternity, where was but Time.
143
STARLIGHT. II.
Man needs no dread unwonted Avatar
The secrets of the heavenly host to show ;
From waves of light, their lustrous founts we know,
For every gleaming band and shadowed bar
Is fraught with homelike tidings from afar ;
Each ripple, starting long decades ago,
Pulsing to earth its blue or golden glow.
Beats with the life of some immortal star.
A life to each minutest atom given —
Whether it find in Man's own heart a place,
Or past the suns, in unimagined space —
That Earth may know herself a part of Heaven,
And see, wherever sun or spark is lit.
One Law, one Life, one Substance infinite.
TRANSLATIONS.
M
THE KNIGHT OF TOGGENBURG.
From the German of Schiller.
" Knight, with sister's love for brother,
Dear to me thou art :
Take this love, and ask no other,
For it grieves my heart :
Calmly coming, calmly going.
Welcome shouldst thou be.
But these tears, in silence flowing,
These are strange to me."
To his bosom, dumbly aching.
Wild the maid he wrings,
Then away in anguish breaking
On his charger springs ;
I4S THE KNIGHT OF TOGGENBURG.
From their mountains, where they tarry
Calls his Switzers brave ;
On their breast the Cross they carry
To the Holy Grave.
Wondrous deeds that host undaunted
Have in fight performed,
Every helmet's plume has flaunted
Where the foemen swarmed ;
Toggenburg, that name victorious.
Frights the Moslem train.
But his heart, 'mid triumphs glorious,
Is not healed from pain.
He has borne a year of sorrow,
Now can bear no more.
Wins no respite, night or morrow,
Rides from camp to shore ;
Sees a ship, with canvas flying,
Joppa's haven leaves.
Home to that dear country hieing
Where her bosom heaves.
THE KNIGHT OF TOGGENBURG. 149
Now the pilgrim nears her castle,
Now his knock is heard ;
Woe ! 'tis opened by a vassal
With the thunder-word —
"She you seek, to God is given.
Veiled before Him bows,
Yestermorn the bride of Heaven
Sealed her marriage vows."
Now his father's castle never
Shall receive its lord,
P'aithful steed he leaves for ever.
Helm, and lance, and sword ;
From the Toggenburg down-stealing.
Tells to none his name,
'Neath a gown of hair concealing
His majestic frame.
And a little hut he raises
Looking towards the glade
Where the convent darkly gazes
From the linden shade :
ISO THE KNIGHT OF TOGGENBURG.
Waiting from the morn's first blushing
Till the sunset shone,
Silent hope his features flushing,
Sat he there alone,
Towards the convent gazing, yearning,
Kept for hours his watch,
To his loved one's window turning,
Till she clinked the latch.
Till the face and form entrancing
From the window smiled.
Downward o'er the valley glancing,
Peaceful, angel-mild.
Now rejoicing, healed from sadness,
Down to sleep he lay.
Woke again witli quiet gladness
At the dawn of day :
So he sat for many a morrow,
Kept for years his watch,
Waiting mutely, void of sorrow,
Till she clinked the latch.
THE KNIGHT OF TOGGENBUKG. 151
Till the face and form entrancing
From the window smiled,
Downward o'er the valley glancing,
Peaceful, angel-mild.
So he sat, when morning's brightness
Dead and cold he met.
With a face of placid whiteness.
Towards her window set.
THE MAIDEN'S LAMENT.
From the German of Schiller.
The oak-wood murmurs,
The sky clouds o'er,
The maiden paces
The grassy shore ;
The billows are breaking with might, with might,
And she sighs aloud in the gloomy night ;
Her eyes all heavy with sadness :
" The heart is broken.
The world is void.
With empty pleasures
My soul is cloyed ;
Thou Holy One, summon thy child above ;
I^have lived my life, I have loved my love.
And revelled in earthly gladness."
THE MAIDEN'S LAMENT. 153
" The tears that thou weepest
All vainly are shed,
No power hath thy plaining
To waken the dead ;
But tell me, what comforts and gladdens the heart
When the joys of sweet Love must for ever depart ;
I, the Holy One, bend to thy crying."
" Let the tears I am weeping
All vainly be shed,
Let my plaining be powerless
To waken the dead :
The sweetest delight for the sorrowful heart
When the joys of bright Love must for ever depart.
Is Love's own weeping and sighing."
THE SHARING OF EARTH.
From the German of Schiller.
" Take ye the world," cried Zeus from Heaven's
height,
" Ye sons of men ! I give it all to you,
A heritage in everlasting right ;
Now share the gift, as brethren do."
Then hasted every hand to grasp its gain,
And young or old, each claimed his share of good
Soon clutched the Husbandman his golden grain ;
The Squire rode hunting through the wood :
The Merchant bustled, till his wares were stowed ;
The Abbot chose him generous cobwebbed wine
The Monarch barred the river and the road,
Crying, " The tenth of all is mine."
THE SHARING OF EARTH. 155
Late, when the last had long received his share,
The Poet came, from regions far and dim ;
Too late ! each heritage had found an heir,
And nought, alas ! was left for him.
" Ah, woe is me ! Of all thy sons, shall I,
The truest, be forgotten ? I alone ?"
Loud to the ears of Zeus he sent his cry,
And threw himself before the throne.
" Nay, if in dreamland thou wert pleased to hide,"
Rejoined the God, " accuse thyself, not me ;
Where, while they portioned Earth, didst tJiou
abide ?"
" I was," the Poet said, " with thee.
" Mine eye was fixed on thy celestial face,
Mine ear upon the harmonies of Heaven ;
If, by thy light entranced, I lost my place
On Earth, oh, be the fault forgiven !"
" What help ?" said Zeus : "the Earth is given away.
Mart, greenwood, harvest, these no more are mine ;
But, if thou be content with me to stay.
Come when thou wilt, a home in Heaven is thine
COMFORT IN TEARS.
From the German of Goethe,
Why art thou sad, when all around
So gay and bright appears ?
For plainly in thine eyes are seen
The traces of thy tears.
" And if I wept in solitude
The grief is mine alone,
And with the tears that sweetly streamed,
More light my heart has grown."'
Come, let us clasp thee in our arms.
Thy joyous comrades say ;
And there, whatever thou hast lost,
Weep thy regrets away.
" Ye brawl and bluster, dreaming not
The secret of my pain ;
My grief is not that I have lost,
Hut that I long in vain."
COMFORT IN TEAKS. 157
Spring boldly up ; for thou art young,
With speed thy task begin ;
Thine is the age of daring deeds,
And strength to strive and win.
" Ah no ! 'tis what I cannot win,
From me 'tis all too far ;
It dwells as high, it gleams as bright,
As shineth yonder star."
We do not long to reach the stars,
But glory in their light.
And gaze to heaven in ecstasy
Each fair and cloudless night.
" I, too, look up in ecstasy.
By day my watch I keep.
Then let we weep the nights away
While I have heart to weep."
i5«
THE WANDERER'S NIGHT SONG.
From the Gerinan of Goethe.
Thou, who Heaven's angel art,
Thou, who pain and sorrow stillest,
And the doubly mournful heart
With a double comfort fiUest !
Ah, what weary days I number !
Why this sad or gay unrest ?
Sweetest slumber
Come, oh come, to calm my breast
( 159 )
EVENING.
From the German of Goethe.
O'er every mountain height
Slumber broods,
Scarcely a zephyr light
Stirs in the woods
One leafy crest ;
The song-bird sleeps on the bough.
Wait a little, and thou.
Thou too, shalt rest.
i6o )
BURY THE DEAD THOU LOVEST
From the Gcnnau of Carl Siebel.
Bury the dead thou lovest,
Deep, deep within thy heart ;
So shall they live and love thee
Till Life and thou shall part.
So for their risen spirits
Thy breast a heaven shall be ;
Like angels, pure and shining,
They go through life with thee.
Bury the life thou livest
Deep in another's heart ;
So shalt thou live beloved
\:\\( n dead and cold thou art.
( i6i )
SPRING.
From the German of Ernst Schitlze.
Oh come, sweet Spring, thy budding flowers unfold ;
Within the woods awake the song-bird's lay,
And gloriously adorn thy kingdom gay
With light, perfume, and clouds beflecked with gold.
All trees shall chant in Love's own murmurous tone,
With Love the stream shall sing, the forest glow :
My heart, perchance, that home of midnight woe,
Circled with joy, shall deem that joy its own.
Alas for me ! Why sadly, mutely look
After long-vanished beams, that once were bright ?
Why call in vain the ghosts of days more fair ?
She who from out my life all gladness took,
From Springtide, too, has stolen Love's delight,
And nothing left, save only Love's despair.
( i62 )
THE RUINED MILL.
From the German of Julius Sturm.
The moon is newly risen,
I wander through the vale ;
My dreaming eyes are spell-bound
By radiance sad and pale.
Behind the mill she rises ;
I watch her silver shield,
And in my heart burst open
The wounds I thought were healed.
Long since, the wheels have mouldered,
And roof and door are gone ;
Babbling of days departed
The glittering stream flows on.
The moon has sunk in darkness.
The wind is blowing cold ;
Dead is the miller's daughter.
And I am grey and old.
THE FIR-TREE.
From the German of Liiise von Ploennies.
High on that hill thou seest
A single fir-tree stand \
I sit there every morning
And gaze across the land.
The stork comes flying swiftly,
The field with flowers is gay ;
But into the world, my sweetheart
Has travelled far away.
And roses bloom in the garden,
And they cut the ripened grain ;
And still I wait for my sweetheart,
He yet may come again.
And the leaves have grown so golden,
The leaves have grown so red ;
And if my sweetheart will not come,
I would that I were dead !
1 64 THE FIR-TKEE.
Oh why hast thou, green fir-tree,
No red and gold array ?
Oh, fiery love within me,
Why dost thou burn for aye ?
Oh, fir-tree, dark-green fir-tree,
Why art thou not sere and old ?
Oh, fiery heart within me.
When, when wilt thou be cold ?
THE WELL.
Fyo?)i the German of Paul Heyse.
Yes, wayward girl, be cold and shy,
From morn till eve lock up thy heart ;
The flashing lustre of thine eye
Must still betray how rich thou art.
That legendary tale they tell
Comes back, while thus I gaze and think
In some old city lay a well,
Whose virgin waters none might drink.
So deep, so fathomless a well.
So wondrous deep, that when they let
A pitcher down, for hours it fell,
And had not reached the bottom yet.
A minstrel, wandering through the land,
Espied it, as he passed along ;
He took his fiddle in his hand.
And played a tune and sang a song.
I66 THE WELL.
And hark ! a sound unwonted here,
A rising, rushing, surging, splashing.
Of water sweet, and cool, and clear.
High over the brim exuberant dashing.
The minstrel drank a joyous draught.
And all the neighbours shared his glee :
What boundless bliss must he have quaffed,
Whose voice could set the fountain free !
AN EVENING SONG.
From the German of Kiickert.
I STOOD upon the mountain
Before the sun had set,
And saw how o'er the forest
Hung evening's golden net.
Earth was bedewed with slumber,
Shed from the clouded sky,
And all the bells of even
Sang Nature's lullaby.
I said — Oh heart, acknowledge
The sleep of earth and air.
And with the meadow's children,
Rest thou from all thy care.
For all the little blossoms
Their eyelids gently close.
And with a softer motion
The streamlet's current flows.
1 68 AN EVENING SONG.
And now the sylph, grown weary,
Under a leaf doth hide ;
The dragon-fly, dew-sprinkled,
Sleeps at the river-side.
Now in his rose-leaf cradle
The golden beetle rocks ;
Back to the fold are hasting
The shepherd and his flocks.
The lark flies earthward, seeking
His clover-shaded nest,
And in the wood's recesses
Lie hart and doe at rest.
And he who has a cottage
There to his rest has lain,
And he who lives in exile.
In dreams goes home again.
An eager yearning fills me :
In vain I long to chmb
Up to my own true country
By mountain paths of time.
MY ONLY ONE.
From the German of J. G. Fischer.
Thou knowest well, that thou art all I have ;
Oh, do not turn th}' lovely eyes from me,
When of the joys of love I speak to thee ;
For thou art all I have.
Thou knowest well, that thou art all I have ;
Why wilt thou envying on the blossoms look.
Withered too soon, and drifting down the brook ?
Since thou art all I have.
Thou knowest well, that thou art all I have ;
But oh, I feel that thou wilt soon depart,
And leave in loneliness this mournful heart
Though thou art all I have.
FAREWELL.
From the German of Emmanuel Geibel.
One goblet more I drink to thee,
Thou fair and foreign strand ;
No sadder could this parting be
Wert thou my native land.
Farewell, farewell ! The sails are spread,
The wind blows fresh and free ;
Its trail of foam the keel has led
Along the deep-green sea.
Now sinks the sun 'mid islets fair,
And rose-red shines the sky ;
'Twas in the hut that glimmers there
We said our last good-bye.
And oh ! how gladly would I stay,
Thou lovely child, with thee !
In vain ! the vision fades away
That was so fair to see.
FAREWELL. 171
For this is life — to come, to go,
To haste o'er sea and shore,
The joys of rest awhile to know,
Then part for evermore.
Loved for a time, forgotten quite,
But mutely loving yet —
Is it the dazzling sunset light
That makes my eyes so wet ?
'Tis past ! I dash the tear away.
And joy with grief has flown ;
This restless heart, where'er I stray,
Must beat henceforth alone.
Well, be it so ! Far o'er the main
The moon's first ray is bright ;
The coast recedes — Yet once again,
My little maid, good-night !
THE BETTER WORLD.
From the Go-man of Hieronymus Lorvi.
Who lives by thought or by belief
Finds in the World a home of pain,
But when Religion's might is vain
Reason is strong to vanquish grief.
Religion, in deep midnight furled,
A better World but prophesies ;
Reason, with clear and open eyes,
Is in itself a better World.
A MODEKN APOSTLE.
A MODERN APOSTLE.
A GARRET room, outlooking on dull streets ;
A bed, a chair or two, a half-starved fire ;
A little table, with a lamp, and sheets
Of printed proofs, and many a written quire ;
Bending o'er these, as though they held the sweets
Of Power or Wisdom, one in mean attire ;
A slender youth, with sallow mobile face,
Quick, dark-browed, nervous^sure, of Celtic race.
You cry, " A common picture !" Look again —
A massive forehead shades the features thin ;
The deep-set eyes are like stilettos twain.
That might transfix a heart grown hard with sin.
Or pierce a clean-edged wound through skull and brain,
A pathway for the Truth to enter in :
What strange bright soul inspires that body frail ?
Hear if you will, and know young Alan's tale.
176 A MODERN APOSTLE.
He was the prophet of a Httle sect
Which deemed itself a plot of favoured ground,
A nursery-garden for the Lord's elect,
Rich-soiled, high-walled, and sentinelled around
By angel-bands so keenly circumspect
They challenged every wind of dubious sound,
And quarantined the sunbeams, lest afloat
In any ray should lurk some poison-mote.
And Alan, nurtured from his infant years
To be a Levite, holy to the Lord,
Took up the ark of God with reverent fears,
And girded on the spiritual sword ;
He would not flinch before Philistine jeers.
Nor take the Babylonish spoils abhorred.
Clean would he keep his soul, pure from the stain
Of thought, of earthly love, of lore profane.
Alas ! not every saint can quite disown
Those two unsaintly organs, brain and heart,
Nor dwell upon a pedestal of stone
Until he grow the pillar's counterpart ;
Nor can he by long prayers and fasts atone
For unregenerate virtues — the black art
Of feeling and of thought is ne'er unlearned.
And spirits come, although the books be burned.
A MODERN APOSTLE. 177
Poor Alan, with the Gael in his hot blood,
And that insatiate mind, which rather durst
Plunge and be drowned in the full tidal flood
Of human wisdom, than live on athirst —
Ah ! how could he, though bred from babyhood
To deem what most he craved a thing accurst,
Dwell in a land of streams innumerous.
And pine a self-afflicted Tantalus ?
A second-hand bookstall was his fatal tree
Of knowledge, bearing divers kinds of fruit :
Peaches soft-rinded, melting lusciously.
Yet bitter-flavoured ; on another shoot
Ruddy-cheeked apples, innocent to see,
But yielding potent cider ; from one root.
It seemed, grew stimulants and anodynes.
Green opium capsules, and rich-clustered vines.
Here Alan read ; at first, the guilt of reading
Weighed on his conscience ; he would toss all night,
Praying the Holy Ghost to grant him leading.
And quell or quench this lawless appetite ;
And then for days from that unhallowed feeding
Would hold aloof, till in his own despite
He turned unthinking down the accustomed street —
The serpent tempted him, and he did eat.
o
I7S A MODERN APOSTLE.
Soon he waxed bolder ; could it be a crime
To learn how men with spirit overcast
Doubted, and told their doubts in prose or rhyme,
Prating of " Cosmos " or of " Protoplast " ?
What then of Job, rash questioner sublime ?
What of the weary throned Ecclesiast ?
He reasoned ; thus accomplishing his fall,
For Reason is the Sin Original.
And so at last he shut his eyes and plunged,
And took whate'er he found, both good and ill —
Pale Christianity with Christ expunged.
Faint Unbelief deploring its own skill,
Great tomes of metaphysic lore, that sponged
The World away, leaving the lonely \s'\\\ :
Carlyle he conned, and — guilt of dye intenser !
Dallied with Darwin and with Herbert Spencer.
A thousand thoughts within his head ran riot.
Shunning at first his Faith, ensceptred long ;
As Rome's old senators, august and quiet.
Sat on their ivory chairs, and cowed the strong
Victorious Gauls, as by a speechless fiat
Divine ; till one of that barbarian throng
Stroked a grey beard ; the answering blow began
The slaughter ; weak wrath proved the god but man.
J MODERN APOSTLE. 179
And thus, when Alan's Faith, by touches rude
Disturbed, in angry tone began to speak,
And let the invading spirits know how crude
She was in wit, in argument how weak,
What marvel that the unbaptized brood
Taunted and mocked, and smote her on the cheek.
Cast her to earth, discrowned her reverend head,
And left her bleeding, senseless, well-nigh dead ?
Yet still she was not slain, and Alan grieved,
And fain had stanched her wounds and set the crown
On her scarred forehead, and again believed ;
But Reason came and stayed him with a frown.
Saying, " Why crave and yearn to be deceived ?
She who lies low deserved to be cast down ;
'Tis Nature's mandate — to the puny rival
Defeat and death : to the more fit, survival."
Yet many times poor wounded Faith uprose,
But each time paler, fainter, freshly maimed,
And stronger and more valiant grew her foes,
Their skill more sure, their strokes more truly aimed ;
Till tortured Alan, reft of all repose,
Plagued night and day by fiery thoughts untamed.
Sought, not the Deity on sapphire throne
Circled with elders ; but a God Unknown,
i8o A MODERN APOSTLE.
It was a l^roken prayer, a wild apj)L'al ;
He spoke aloud, nor knew what words he said.
He did not clasp his hands, or bend, or kneel,
J3ut paced the room with quick uneven tread.
Now hurrying in the tumult of his zeal.
Now halting, with a pang of sudden dread.
And now he seemed, with fixed gaze, to invoke
Some present Power : and these strange words he spoke :
" My God ! whether thou be my Father too.
The Father who willed not to take from Christ
That bitter cup, but rather to renew
His strength to suffer and be sacrificed ;
Or whether the green earth, the heavens blue.
And men — kings high enthroned, slaves cheaply
priced —
Be but thy Visions — transient thoughts and themes.
Which thou, the World-Soul, shadowest in thy dreams :
" My (lod ! if thou dost hear, or if indeed
Thy Spirit breathes in mine, and prays this prayer —
Thou knowest my pain, my strife, my famished need ;
For health, love, gladness, let the morrow care.
To-day I hunger for a perfect creed :
If I be but thy dream, in me declare
Some symbol of the Truth — or let me die,
That, fleeting, I may know the Dawn is nigh.
A MODERN APOSTLE.
" Is not this madness ? Wherefore do I pray
To my own soul, and cheat myself with hope ?
Seeking for earnest in the Cosmic play,
Weak victim of an Oriental trope !
And yet, O Truth, whom I blaspheme to-day,
Because with doubt and dread I scarce may cope,
Reveal thyself, and let thy sole word be — ■
' Leave all, take up thy cross, and follow me !' "
His deep eyes shono wdth rapture as he bade
To Love and Faith, for Hope's dear sake, adieu :
He owned no "great possessions ;" but he had
Home, friends, a pittance, and from hearers few
Credence devout ; though some looked shrewd and sad,
And shook their heads, and whispered that he drew
His doctrines from vile books of Babylon,
By scoffers, named Carlyle and Emerson.
Little he cared in that ecstatic hour
For friendly or for hostile tongues and pens ;
Let the grim Orthodox be starched and sour.
The dull beasts growl morosely in their dens !
He felt but his own spirit's fervent power.
Which — by his thought as by a crystal lens
Converged and focussed in one burning spot —
Imaged that Sun, which mortal eyes see not.
i82 J MODERN APOSTLE.
A wondrous Vision rose before his sight —
The Earth in all her glory ; flowers and trees ;
Purple-robed mountain-ranges, every height
Gleaming like gold ; rich meadows ; boundless seas,
That changed from sapphire to green chrysolite
And topaz ; in the land and ocean breeze
Life's voices murmured ; scale and fur and wing
Bright glistened ; while Man trod, apparent king.
But as he looked, there passed a stormful cloud
Athwart the sun, and wakened fiery strife
In heaven \ he heard the waves roar, and the loud
Thunders ; then deeper gazing, saw how life
Preyed upon life ; how men, ruthless and proud.
Destroyed their fellow-men with club and knife
And fire-brand ; or by deadlier arms, and fraud
Refined, and smooth hypocrisy unawed.
Yet in the stained Earth and the darkened Sun,
He saw, by some revealing miracle,
The Eternal Power which makes the Many, One,
Shining through all ; the Law made visible :
As though this embryo world had just begun
To quicken with the shaping Principle
Which silently prepares its robe of youth
A body all translucent to the Truth.
A MODERN APOSTLE. 183
Then came a Voice — " Behold what thou hast sought
So long ; thyself, and Nature's Self, behold !
Thou couldst not spend thy prayers and tears for nought,
By human pain my Being I unfold ;
I am the end and essence of thy thought.
The life of all new creeds and symbols old ;
I rule in star and atom ; all mankind
Work out my purpose in their battlings blind.
" But thou, whose eyes are opened ; who dost see
Thy true Soul, and yet livest — thou, rejoice !
Go forth into the world and speak of me ;
I choose thee from all men by thine own choice ;
In evil and in good, in bond and free
I live, and utter truth in every voice ;
Each sings his few faint notes of joy and woe,
Only my Prophets the full concord know."
The Voice passed, and the Vision, and gave place
To darkness and deep silence, as of death ;
And the young mystic fell upon his face,
Scarce his heart beat, and scarce he drew his breath :
This glorious message to the human race,
Unknown to ancient seers, who cried, " Thus saith
The Lord," held all his sense and soul entranced,
While the hours fled, night deepened, morn advanced.
i84 A MODERN APOSTLE.
He felt as one who, having grasped the whole
Of his desire, may rest ; he seemed estranged
From realms of Space, and freed from Time's control,
Pure Spirit ; not from dream to dream he ranged.
Nor prayed, nor hoped, nor pondered ; for his soul
Was all concentred in one thought unchanged :
Till slowly he awoke, when dawn was near.
Mortal again ; but (iod's anointed seer.
A MODERN APOSTLE. 185
11.
Small, fragile, and dark-eyed was Alan's mother,
Of Highland blood ; her solemn Saxon mate
Had ne'er been able quite to quench or smother
The poet-flame within her breast innate ;
She had been wont, to Alan and no other,
Strange tales of wraith and kelpie to relate.
And wondrous legends of the second sight,
Claimed by her race as its ancestral right.
She told her tales in rapid whispers, sitting
Over the fire, with changeful glances wild,
And (^uick dramatic hands, that wove unwitting
A spiritual garment for her child,
Who all the while, his bright eyes never quitting
Her face, beside her crouched, enrapt, beguiled
But these were secret pleasures : when she heard
A slow step, hushed was the half-spoken word.
1 86 A MODERN APOSTLE.
For Alan's father, tall, large-boned, and grim,
Considered works of fiction merely lies,
And banned all poetry except the hymn ;
His creed forbade him earthly gifts to prize.
Calling mirth, folly — love, a sinful whim :
Such faith at once contracts and satisfies
The constant soul ; that one ideal spark
Shows all the world around blank, cold, and dark.
Each day he opened with a prayer, and singing ;
The prayer a little sermon in disguise,
Teaching the Lord His own designs, and slinging
Smooth pebbles at unwise and overwise ;
The hymn was loud, aggressive, as though flinging
Contemptuous pearls to neighbours or to spies ;
Like a big drum he sang, beat with small skill ;
Alan, more low ; the mother, clear and shrill.
That morning, Alan sang with fervour double ;
His inner exaltation overbore
All sad presentiment of toil and trouble
And severance of old friendships, and welled o'er
\\\ natural song : the hymn said, " Life's a bubble,
A wave that breaks in foam upon the shore,
A fading leaf :" but Alan's voice rang out
As though its burden were a triumph-shout.
A MODERN APOSTLE. 187
And after prayer, and hymn, and frugal meal.
He spoke, and all his glorious Vision told ;
At first with painful strivings to reveal
His secret heart : but soon he grew more bold,
And e'en his father's look could not congeal
His ardour ; as the petrifying cold
That binds the dull stream. Winter's prisoned vagrant,
Freezes not generous wine, nor ether fragrant.
The old man heard with bony brows drawn down,
And keen eyes watchful, and thin lips compressed ;
The anxious mother shivered at his frown.
And trembled for her son, yet unconfessed
Shared in the new belief ; she plucked her gown
With nervous fingers, while her loving breast
Was rent with fear, and hope, and awe-struck joy
That Heaven had found a Prophet in her boy.
The story ended ; then with look austere.
And speech deliberate, calm, the father spoke :
" I understand you well ; your words are clear ;
You fain would cast away the ancient yoke.
Renounce the Lord of Hosts, whom devils fear
And angels worship ; and, forsooth, invoke
Some newer God, who dwells in rogue and thief,
Yet speaks by you, of his apostles chief.
J MODERN APOSTLE.
" Call on your Baal ! Try what he can do — •
Surely he is a god, though he begins
With blasphemy — doubt not — your course pursue ;
Shout, leap, and wound your soul, till suffering wins
Success ; and then remember, that while you
Are feasting, I am fasting for my sins.
And wishing Heaven had blotted out the morn
On which a man-child to the world was born."
He broke off with a sob ; Alan, aghast
At such emotion, hastened to his side.
Crying, " My father !" But he roughly cast
His son away, with gestures that defied
Sorrow and pity, and in silence passed
Out from the house, in his unbending pride
That did brave battle with a love and grief
More deep than aught except his stern belief.
And now the son and mother, each to each
The best-loved thing on earth, were left alone ;
Then on his knees beside her, without speech
He fell, and took her cold hands in his own ;
And she, all trembling, weeping the new breach
Between her dear ones, spoke in faintest tone,
Pleadingly, brokenly, as though she prayed
For grace, that some hard sentence might be stayed.
A MODERN APOSTLE. 189
" My Alan, my dear son ! my heart will break —
Although I always knew that God would send
His Spirit — that some morning you would wake
And feel that strength was granted you to spend
In some great service — only, for my sake
And for your father's, wait a little — bend
Awhile, before his anger — who can tell ?
This wrathful mood may pass — he loves you well."
But he replied, " My mother, tempt me not !
For you I would do all things — all, save this —
Nay, I could wish my father's wish, to blot
My hour of birth, rather than idly miss
My birthright : grieve you that my zeal is hot ?
You taught me, by your songs, your tales, your kiss
That human love, that heed of Wisdom's ray,
By which the heavenly Voice I now obey.
" Ah, do not weep, dear mother ! Even those
-Who cast me forth, shall hear the Word divine ;
To-morrow, in the face of friends and foes,
My charge, once held so dear, I must resign —
But weep not !" He embraced her and arose
And went forth, that the April sun might shine
Into his heart, and quiet grief and wrath
And exultation, and make plain his path.
I90 A MODERN APOSTLE.
'Twas in an English town that Alan dwelt,
A town marked Liberal both by creeds and votes,
Where every individual voice did melt
In the loud hum of Progress ; jarring notes
Of small exclusive sects were merely felt
Like nettle-stings when dock-leaf antidotes
Are plenteous ; there, the party-leader's cue
AVas to hope all things, and believe a few.
Turning a corner sharply, Alan met
George, an old school-mate, strong in politics.
Ruddy and fair, short-staturcd and thick-set.
Well versed in all the rhetorician's tricks ;
An eye he had that you could ne'er forget.
Blue, humorous, clear ; not steady to transfix
The erring, but most skilful to detect
A meeting's mood, and watch a word's effect.
" 'Tis you !" he cried — " we have not met for long ;
In truth, I wonder you are still alive,
Pacing your treadmill round with weary song.
Seeking rich honey in a dronish hive,
Boring deep wells Artesian in the wrong
Strata, whence you may dig, till you arrive
At the earth's core, yet no refreshing drop
Vou find, till at the central fire you stop.
A MODERN APOSTLE. 191
" Some day, your friends will leave you in the lurch,
For what know you about the selfish springs
That move them to condemn all true research ?
Like Gallio, I care nothing for such things — •
And yet I care for you — I know a church
Where you might fearlessly unfold your wings,
Read, think, and labour, and perchance do good —
A free church, in a crowded neighbourhood.
" They want a parson now — the salary
Is poor, but better than your present pay ;
And what is worse than the dull destiny
Of one condemned, year after year, to stay
Shut in a sect, and preach incessantly
The same old doctrines in the same old way ?
Come forth, nor heed how bigots may abuse
The step — shake off their dry dust from your shoes."
The words, though kindly meant — the flippant cavil —
The confident suggestions, like commands.
Jarred upon Alan ; then, he fain would travel,
And scatter the good seed in many lands ;
Yet might he not, by George's aid, unravel
Present perplexities, and set his hands
To the Lord's plough ? And would not God enlarge
His field, if true he were in one small charge ?
192 .-^ MODERN APOSTLE.
Therefore he answered — " Come to-morrow night,
And tell me of this church — -my trust I leave
Not for its dulness, nor for any spite
Against the people, who in faith receive
My words, and to their utmost power requite
My service ; nay, I willingly would cleave
To this old home ; but God has called me thence.
Granting me sight of his Omnipotence."
" Well," said the other— " so that you come out
I care not why. On Sunday evening, late.
When none of your good friends will be about.
And your last sermon will have fixed your fate.
Expect me. Now, good-bye ; I have to spout
To-night, at a political debate.
And must begin to think what I shall say —
So, till to-morrow !" And he went his way.
Then Alan wandered far, beyond the town.
Past budding hedge-rows, where the spider weaves
Her tracery ; past trees with branches brown
Seen through their April robe of light green leaves ;
And past bright gardens, where the tulip-crown
And fruit-buds pink, are spoiled by winged thieves ;
Such common sights, and the soft wind's caress
Filled all his soul with strength and happiness.
A MODERN APOSTLE.
193
Farther he rambled ; on through country lanes
And copses where the ferns their fronds unrolled,
And pastures where the gentle spring-tide rains
Jewelled anemone and marigold ;
Thrushes and blackbirds carolled joyful strains,
And all things sang, in cadence manifold —
" Rejoice, rejoice, with bird and tree and flower !
Rejoice, rejoice, in plenitude of power !"
Homeward he turned, his ardent mind sincere
Feasting on this glad gospel ; soon, ah soon 1
The trembling mother must forget her fear,
The steadfast father must accept that boon
Dearer than rubies ; all should see and hear
With souls undimmed, exultant in the noon
Of cloudless Truth ; Faith, Hope, and Love, these three,
At last should blend in perfect trinity.
194 ^ MODERN APOSTLE.
III.
Alan had preached his sermon — grave, devout,
Yet full of lightnings and electric shocks
For tender souls who reckoned even doubt
Less damnable than faith unorthodox ;
Henceforth the young apostle stood without
Their iron gates, made fast with bars and locks,
Till his last banishment to realms beneath.
Where scoffers ever weep and gnash their teeth.
But now he sat and chatted in his room
With his friend George, who comfortably smoked
His pipe, unthinking of so dread a doom,
And talked in worldly tone, that half-provoked
Alan to wrath ; yet on the trantjuil fume
Floated kind wishes, clad in words that joked,
.\nd many a scheme, by friendly warmth begot.
And pictures quaint of Alan's future lot.
J MODERN APOSTLE. 195
" The people, chiefly poor and ignorant,
Will be a stony field for you to plough ;
What thoughts they spare from misery and from want
May they be yours ! But let me show you now
Another aspect : you will have a scant
Sprinkling of better hearers, to allow
Scope for your genius — men of moderate wealth,
Whose tonic for their spiritual health
" Has been to found a church where all is free.
The seats, the service, and the preacher's thought,
Where e'en the poorest may behold the Tree
Of Life, and taste, and eat his fill for nought :
A fine idea, though such things to me
Are nothings : well, their cleverest member caught
Directly, at your name ; for he had heard
You once, and had remembered every word.
" Their cleverest, not their richest : though he rules
The others, he is but a dilettante ;
(Our thirty millions, true, are ' mostly fools,'
Wisdom is rare, and men of mind are scanty !) ;
They reverence him, with faith that never cools
For having meant to write a book on Dante —
All, save his helpmate ; commonplace and keen,
Through her sage lord her wifely eyes have seen.
196 A MODERN APOSTLE.
"Then their one daughter — did you meet her ever?
Slim shape, and soft brown hair, and dark-blue eyes,
So gentle, that you scarce believe her clever.
And quite entrancing, were she not so wise :
But oh, beware of Ella's beauty ! never
Let that Madonna fairness win your sighs ;
Or, if you should address her, use your tact,
And study first the sciences exact.
"The heavenly host she watches from her attics,
She knows the name and place of every star ;
True incarnation of Pure Mathematics,
She cares for all that is abstruse or far :
Go, woo her with Dynamics and with Statics,
And term your love a force molecular ;
She then, perchance, may fathom your intention —
Plain language is beneath her comprehension.
" Enough of this ! you are a son of God,
And do not haunt the daughters of the earth —
Yet who can tell ? you are no frozen clod ;
Perchance fair Venus, whose celestial worth
You long have slighted, may prepare a rod
To torture you, or else a cup of mirth
To tempt you — Well, I hope 'twill be the latter :
As to the church, be easy, for that matter
A MODERN APOSTLE. 197
" Is practically settled. Now, good-night,
And happy dreams of — whatsoe'er you choose !"
They parted. Alan, by the fire's dim light
Long meditated on the hopeful news.
And felt that he unthankfuUy should slight
Heaven's leading, could he hesitate to use
A proffered chance of free unfettered work.
Came it from Jew, or Infidel, or Turk.
And then he looked from out his window high.
As though the fresh night air could put to proof
His purity of heart : against the sky
Each house stood black, distinct, and each wet roof
Gleamed in the moonlight ; tapering slenderly
Rose many a spire : the city seemed aloof
From care and toil ; and said, by silence deep —
" Doubt not nor ponder, but in gladness sleep."
Why should I weary the long-suffering Muse
And listener patient-souled, with tedious telling
Of letters, of official interviews,
Of change of ministry, and change of dwelling,
And how the fond proud mother wept to lose
Her son, and how the father's heart was knelling
The death of hope, or how the elders prayed
In vigorous language for the renegade ?
igS A MODERN APOSTLE.
Enough, that Alan found himself installed
In his new church, and gloried in the sense
Of working unimpeded, unenthralled ;
Here was no sentinel, demanding "Whence
Come you, and whither go ?" A town unwalled
Was that society, with no defence
Save the united force of Faith and Science —
In truth, a somewhat perilous alliance.
Here he proclaimed the Brotherhood of Men —
God lives in all ; by Him are all inspired,
And so are equal ; to the Prophet's ken
The king is level with the drudge o'ertired,
And what he is, should seem : with tongue and pen
He preached Equality, until he fired
His people ; and ere long, the novel schism
Was christened " Pantheistic Socialism."
Such was his lot, when first I bade you look,
Kind listener, at his study, where he wrote
His deep thoughts in a world-convincing book ;
But that was night — his days he would devote
To patient work in many a squalid nook,
Amid such sights and odours, as denote
The homes of women dulled in heart and eye,
Mothers of starveling babies, born to die.
A MODERN APOSTLE. 199
Or for worse fates. Such wretches he would aid
From his own scanty income ; sometimes even
They ventured in to hear him, half afraid,
And did not understand, but felt near heaven :
Of motley stuff his little flock was made,
Rich men, poor men, and beggars, with a leaven
Of gentle women ; but for him, the place
Contained but one, with sweet Madonna-face.
The blue eyes gleamed with quivering light, as though
Some lamp within had just begun to shine,
The pale cheeks flushed, as 'mid the latest snow
Bloom faint pink almond blossoms — welcome sign
Of coming Spring — he deemed this changeful glow
Enkindled by an intuition fine
That pierced through speech and symbol, ne'er content
Until it knew the soul of what he meant.
He watched the face on Sundays, dreamed of it
Through all the week ; in haunts of dark distress
And sordid shame, he saw its beauty flit.
Now, for a moment, calm and passionless,
And now again with sudden radiance lit,
Like some new-born diviner consciousness
Evolving from completed human grace
The future parent of a nobler race.
J MODERN APOSTLE.
No Raphaelite Madonna has a brow-
Like Ella's, nor could e'er have learnt the use
Of sciences to which by voiceless vow
Her strength was dedicate ; in themes abstruse
She locked herself, and scarce had craved till now
A truth not yielded by her Ufe recluse ;
As litde children, miserably fed,
(Irow faint, but are not hungry for their bread.
For she, with innocent clear sight, had found
That those about her merely thought of thinking,
And felt they ought to feel ; with quick rebound
She drew her life away from theirs, and shrinking
From windy verbiage, craved some solid ground,
Trying to satisfy her soul by linking
Truths abstract ; no vague talk of liberal views
Can alter cosine and hypotenuse.
Her mother, with shrewd mind of meaner class
Laughed inly, when she heard some " thinker " draw
The wonted music from his sounding brass,
Showing that with approval Christ foresaw
This nineteenth century of steam and gas.
And Mammon, and " Inexorable Law,"
Or wresting from St. Paul a strong opinion
In favour of the theory Darwinian.
J MODERN APOSTLE.
But Ella grieved ; her father's lucubration
On Dante (which, in sooth, till Doomsday comes
Shall never be writ down) — the declamation
Of pseudo-scientific Chrysostoms
Rejoiced her not ; she gained a reputation
For gentle chillness ; and, since nought benumbs
The heart so much as when our friends suppose
It cold, poor Ella slowly, sadly froze.
Yet Ella was a woman, and the frost
Bound not her inmost nature ; still she kept
The natural love for children ; she had lost
A baby sister once, and when she slept
Often the little child's white image crossed
Her dreams, and nearer stole to her, and crept
Close to her heart ; then, piercing through her sleep
Remembrance thrilled, and she would wake and weep.
When Alan came, at first she only smiled
At his fresh ardour ; yet she oft would check
Her satire ; for he seemed a very child.
Pure, single-minded, with no marring fleck
Of self-conceit, although by dreams beguiled ;
And she would sigh, to think how time must wreck
His hopes, and all his fancies disenchant ;
So mused the girl, like some old maiden aunt.
A MODERN APOSTLE.
But soon, a strange new light began to break
Upon her mind, and dubiously to fall
O'er thought and feeling : what if the mistake
In truth, were hers ; and what if after all
This visionary seer were more awake
Than she, the sage and mathematical ?
'Twas thus she pondered, as in church she sate
Listening, with changeful colours delicate.
From pitying, she began to sympathise,
From sympathising, almost to revere ;
The inner light grew radiant in her eyes,
And she forgot her wise predictions drear,
And she forgot to carp and criticise,
And all things she forgot, except to hear,
And hope, and with a willing mind receive
The mystic word — and lastly, to believe.
Her face grew fairer, and her step more light.
As though she entertained, not unaware,
An angel : as some holy anchorite.
When heavenly visitants have deigned to share
His hut and food, will feel a sweet delight
Henceforth, in water pure and meagre fare ;
So Ella found new pleasures in her home.
And fresh gradations in Life's monochrome.
A MODERN APOSTLE. 203
More bright and blithe she was, than any yet
Had known her ; all around might well discern
The change, much marvelling what amulet
Transformed the gentle maiden taciturn
So gladsomely. When she and Alan met,
As soon they 7nust meet, haply might she learn
The spirit of all prophets who have dwelt
On earth, and dream what Christ's apostles felt.
204 J MODERN APOSTLE.
IV.
At last they met, once, twice, and many times.
Until she knew the secret of his being,
That essence which an ardent zeal sublimes
From the dull ashes ; faith was slowly freeing
Her soul from fear ; she felt as one who climbs
High peaks at midnight, knowing, but not seeing
The depths beneath him, while his lantern's glow
Shines brilliantly before him on the snow.
What shall the sun reveal ? A cloud-robed world,
A space of white about the traveller's feet.
And all things else impenetrably furled
In vapours cold ? Or will the mist retreat.
Unveiling valleys green, with lakes impearled.
And bounded by a curve of Alps, that greet
The dawn with rosy summits, towering high
Beneath the paling moon and faint blue sky ?
A MODERN APOSTLE. 205
But Alan — with heart pure and passionate
That ne'er of any woman's love had dreamed,
To noble service ever consecrate —
Now joyed in broadening, brightening noon, that
streamed
Above him and around, till Life and Fate
Were nought but one glad radiance, and Love seemed
The fruit of Truth's white flower, grown sweet and ripe ;
Nay, Truth herself was here, the perfect type
In a fair woman's form ; the one Ideal
Shining all glorious 'mid the figures grey
Of Earth ; how different from the hideous Real
He saw in court and alley day by day !
He was of those who going down to Sheol
Can find God there, yet none the less do pray
To see Him, not through veils of shame and vice,
But as man first beheld in Paradise.
Yet when the Truth is clad in beauteous flesh
That man may know it, human love will claim
Its rights ; and daily deeper in the mesh
Sank Alan's heart, and all his fine-strung frame
With passion throbbed. One August evening fresh.
He walked in Ella's garden, while the flame
Of sunset lit the trees with golden sheen,
Changing to chrysoprase their sombre green.
2o6 A MODERN APOSTLE.
And she was at his side ; he spoke to her
Eagerly, earnestly, and yet he said
No word whose mere significance could stir
The pulse ; but every syllable, instead
Of telling its own tale, was messenger
Of Love ; and answering came the fitful red
To Ella's cheeks ; though, as they slowly walked,
'Twas but of Alan's mission that they talked.
Until he said, close-bending, " When at first
I came, and saw the rows of faces blank,
The brutish and the ignorant, and worst
The self-complacent rich, my spirit sank
A moment ; then a flood of sunshine burst
Upon me, for I saw your eyes that drank
The message, and returned it richly bright,
As this deep rose gives beauty to the light.
" And as the rose within her petals hides
The rays which they reflect not, yet receive,
Oh, tell me now that in your heart abides
Full confidence— nay, Ella, do not grieve.
Look up — assure me that one Vision guides
Your steps and mine — that you in truth believe ;
I know it, yet forgive me if I seek
To hear it — Ella ! speak to me— oh speak !"•
A MODERN APOSTLE. 207
She faltered " I believe " with head low-drooped,
And tearful eyes — new longings and alarms
Athwart her inward vision swiftly trooped ;
As one whom unfamiliar music charms
Breathless and mute she stood ; but Alan stooped
And kissed her lips, and clasped her in his arms.
Crying, " I love — I worship you ! AVe share
One life — oh joy too great for man to bear !"
And she replied ; such answers are not made
In speech articulate ; no word she spoke
For Alan's ears, but on his breast she laid
Her head, as though she sought at once to cloak
And to express her passion. They had stayed
Thus, for long hours, but that a loud sound broke
Upon their rapt communion, like the knell
Of that bright moment — 'twas the evening bell
For prayer. They hurried in, nor watched the glow
Of sunset fading from the purple beech.
And, bidding fond good-night, she bade him go,
That she, with chosen words, might try to reach
Her parents' hearts, before she slept. And so
The sacred love-tale was profaned by speech.
Till from the two she won a slow consent,
Mingled with scolding and with merriment.
2oS A MODERN APOSTLE.
The father, half in earnest, half to tease,
Exclaimed — " Just like Cadijah and Mahomet,
Or Beatrice and Dante — whom you please !
I wish you joy, my daughter, and )Our comet
Is brilliant." The shrewd mother, ill at ease.
Said " No — your will-o'-the-wisp ! What can come
from it ?
And what's the use of all your Conic Sections
If like a fool you yield to your affections ?"
But Ella gloried in the grudging " Yes ;"
Love lent the charmed days bright plumes to fly.
Woke her each morn, and filled her loneliness
^^'ith light, and sang at eve her lullaby :
Yet, as the spring-buds burst, her joy grew less —
No chill distrust of Alan's constancy,
Nor any fear that time could e'er abate
His fervid love, made her disconsolate.
It was not this ; but her deep-thinking brain
Learned slowly, mournfully, against her will,
How mystic faiths are woven from a vain
Tissue of dreams, which hold men captive still
In day-light ; and she saw, witli bitter pain.
That every thought, deed, passion, good or ill.
Might thus be sanctified, and at its need
Find refuge in some hospitable creed.
A MODERN APOSTLE. 209
And when she conned the pages of his book,
And saw his cherished thoughts, all printed clear,
Robbed of that glow suffused of voice and look
Which made their mellow misty atmosphere.
She shivered, almost thinking she mistook
The words, that seemed so living to her ear,
So spectral to her eye — men praised the style,
Bold, fiery : mute she heard, with pallid smile.
Not that her love diminished — nay, it grew :
As oft from wild delirious words we know
The spirit's beauty, so his nature true
Shone out more bright through the delusive show
Of gloaming fantasies ; but well she knew
Her Reason tipped the dart, and strung the bow,
To slay his Passion : with a wife to dwell
Not wedded to his soul, for him were Hell.
Confute a theologian ; with sharp word
He answers you, yet may forgive the thrust
If he be quite convinced that you have erred :
But tell Jehovah's prophet that his trust
Is nought — he will not rage, but he will gird
His loins in silence, and will shake the dust
From off his feet, and go his lonely way.
Over dry desert sand, or fenlands grey.
Q
A MODERN APOSTLE.
She pined with strange distress — the woman's heart
Throbbed, quivered, bled ; while the logician's mind
Worked on relentless, heeding not the smart.
Ne'er to be drugged, or deafened, or made blind :
Against herself her riven self took part.
The martyr and the torturer combined :
Stretched on the rack, bound with flesh-cutting rope.
What is the poor maimed anguished victim's hope ?
What is a woman's hope when she is torn
By passion and by thought, and cannot cease
To think or love, nor teach herself to scorn
Her deepest life, nor ever win release
From the harsh yoke, too heavy to be borne,
Of iron principles that crush her peace :
Will not some opiate give her dreamful rest
Till she return to the Great Mother's breast ?
Nay ! rather let her maim her shrinking soul —
That groping she may climb her lame way in
To Life — than down to Death, seeing and whole,
Spring, damned by the inexpiable sin
Of treachery ; and in the longed-for goal
Find that fair-seeming Heaven which traitors win.
Whose gate is bliss ; whose midmost point, a germ
Of Hell, whence issues the undying worm.
.-i MODERN APOSTLE.
'Twas a May twilight — and the two once more
" Paced round the walks where they were wont to spend
Sweet hours : but Ella spoke as ne'er before —
Calmly, as one who, dying, tells his friend,
His best-beloved friend, that life is o'er,
That now is come the dead, blank, hopeless end ;
Yet weeps not, neither moans, because his breath
Is well-nigh quenched by the chill winds of Death.
But Alan stayed her^ — " No, it cannot be !
This is some fevered nightmare dream !" he cried —
" Wake and believe, dear Ella ! wake and see
How Earth and Heaven by God are glorified ;
His presence shines in every flower and tree.
And in ourselves — and shall He be denied
By those who breathe His Spirit ? Be not you
Like the blind throng, who know not what they do !
" Forgive me, Dearest ; you are sad and pale ;
I speak too harshly." But she answered — " Nay,
Be not so gentle, lest your words avail
Too much — lest I be tempted to obey
Love, and not conscience : my resolve is frail,
Yet I ivill speak : oh turn your eyes away,
And do not touch my hand, the while I try
To tell my thought — until we say good-bye.
A MODERN APOSTLE.
" You are as true as any seer of old,
Prophet, or martyr ; you would sell your life
That Faith might rise up from her torpor cold,
And vanquish doubt, hypocrisy, and strife :
For this I loved you — yes, long ere you told
Your love— yet, Alan, if I were your wife
I should be but a mist, a leaden cloud.
Folding your spirit in its clinging shroud.
" For all my faith is gone, that seemed so sure
Even that God who every day is wroth
With sinners, gives a refuge more secure
For the sad heart ; the banquet is of froth
Which you in mercy set before the poor.
Not knowing : Alan, Alan, that we both
Might strive to find, by patient thought and search.
Some firm foundation for a nobler Church !"
Her voice grew stroiiger, and more clear her glance,
As thus she pleaded, and to thoughts long pent
Within her breast, gave language ; she perchance
Clung to some hope : but Alan, eloquent.
Broke forth with all the story of his trance.
And how he was inspired of God, and sent
To tend the flame Divine 'mid vapours damp
And cold — the dim yet ever-l)urning lamp.
J MODERN APOSTLE. 213
She listened — then she said, in tones that fell
Upon his soul and senses heavily —
" Long have I pondered o'er this vision-spell ;
For me it holds no magic. You are free,
And we must part — kiss me and say Farewell.
Yet are you mine to all Eternity —
No other voice or look my heart can move,
I love you with irrevocable love."
The pallid mournful face, the solemn tone,
Slew all his hope. He clasped her to his breast.
And kissed the passive lips, that chilled his own
Like icicles, and speechlessly expressed
Her anguish — till she cried, with sudden moan
Thrusting him from her — " Leave me — it is best —
I am too weak to bear it." Forth he went
Alone, with quick blind steps, and head low-bent.
When some poor lonely pilgrim devotee
Who worships in the temple of a saint,
Coming one morning with his fervent plea
Finds the shrine empty — trembling then and faint
He leaves the stone, deep-printed by his knee,
And goes out homeless, with no wild complaint.
But stricken. Yet to feel what Alan felt
Is sharper pain — to see the spirit melt
214 'l MODERN APOSTLE.
And fade and vanish from some image fair
Of Truth, whose glory clothed it like the sun,
But now departs, leaving it cold and bare
And lifeless. One dark moment, only one
He doubted his Ideal ; but his prayer
And answering Vision, came afresh, and spun
A web, that nought could break except the power
Of Life's last sad illuminating hour.
And Ella ? Almost stupefied with w-oe.
Of him were all her thoughts, as bowed, forlorn,
He left her, sorely wounded, as a foe
Can never wound. She scarce could stay to mourn
Her own maimed life, but, pacing to and fro.
Pictured his days of weary labour, shorn
Of joy ; until the bitterness of loss
O'erwhelmed her, and she stooped to take her cross.
She set herself to suffer and endure
In silence. Life, though mutilated, marred.
Must yet be lived ; there was not any cure.
Nor any further stab ; the gate seemed barred
Alike to hope and fear, and she was pure
At least, of treason ; yet the thought was hard
That this last act of loyalty could gain
Nought from her Love, save haply his disdain.
A MODERN APOSTLE. 215
Heart-sore, all probing hints she sought to parry,
But when at length she spoke, her father said—
" My dear, a man of genius should not marry,
It should be penal for a seer to wed ;
You know, Ezekiel's wife must help to carry
His ' burden.' " "Yes, and help to earn the bread,
And bake it," said the mother — " glorious fate
No doubt — for ' glorious ' means ' unfortunate ' !"
2i6 J MODERN APOSTLE.
V.
Summer passed by, and Autumn ; Winter came
With grey cold days and black unpitying nights,
And many children gathered round the flame
Of Yule-tide logs, and dreamed of new delights
With the New Year : many, with shivering frame.
Half-naked, famished, crept to see the sights
In gay shop-windows— a celestial treat !
On earth there might be bread, and sometimes meat.
But this was Heaven. They had their make-believe.
For every child can find an open door
Even from Hell, and thoughtlessly achieve
Proserpine's miracle ; while she who bore
The starvelings, crouches too benumbed to grieve
In her cold room, and sees but the bare floor
And fireless hearth, and hungers through the day,
Idle, or toiling hard for paltry pay.
A MODERN APOSTLE. 217
Wages were low that winter ; work was scant ;
And many little groups of men would cluster
Round the street corners ; grim they were and gaunt,
With hollow cheeks and sunken eyes lack-lustre ;
And oft, attracted by the ready rant
Of some stump orator, a throng would muster
To hear of wrongs and rights, and pass a plan
For straightway equalising man and man.
And Alan went among them ; he was pale
And thin as they, but his deep eyes outshone
With self-consuming light, that told a tale
Of Hope and Love irrevocably gone,
But Faith still clinging to her Holy (xrail —
That sacred poison-wine, which made him wan
And fiery, giving strength to brave and bear
All ills, all woes ; strength even to despair.
But at the people's groan, his heart waxed hot,
And loathed the miserable prayers and pence
He had to give, and private pangs forgot
In the one sorrow of his impotence
To succour ; he would say he scarce knew what
In fire-words, winged with fatal eloquence,
And then go home, and in his study brood
Through night, till dawn, careless of sleep and food.
2i8 A MODERN APOSTLE.
Thus the drear days dragged on ; and with the spring
No comfort came, but rather woe more keen,
For Poverty more deeply plunged her sting,
And stalwart frames grew slouching, pinched, and lean,
And there arose that sullen murmuring
Which may mean little, but perchance may mean
The roll of coming thunder, and the flash
Of lightning — or the earthcjuake's deadlier crash.
One day, as Alan sat intently writing
An earnest tract on Dives and his dogs,
A sudden tumult, as of fire or fighting.
Pierced through the smoky mist which ever clogs
The air of towns ; he heard a voice inciting
To deeds of vengeance — ^" Are you stones or logs ?
Prove yourselves men ! Burst on them like a flood —
The rich, who batten on your flesh and blood !"
He started up ; that moment, his old friend
George rushed in, crying—" Quick 1 the mob ! a riot !
The people cried for bread, and we who tend
Their souls political, replied ' Be quiet !
Hope on !' while such as you, the case to mend,
Fed them on too inflammable a diet ;
And so, among us all, the mischief's done.
The fire brand lit, the rioting begun.
A MODERN APOSTLE. 219
" But now, make haste ! for some of them have taken
The road to Ella's home — don't turn so white !
Perhaps they'll only ask for bread and bacon,
And beer, their one inalienable right ;
Cheer up, my friend ! I know you are forsaken.
But here's a chance to act the doughty knight,
Boldly to face the many-headed giant,
And hold your Love 'gainst all the world defiant !"
They chose the quiet streets, where the fierce rabble
Came not ; all doors were barred, all shops were shut.
No children in the gutters dared to dabble.
No woman chatted with her neighbour ; but
From the great thoroughfares they heard the babble
Of many voices ; once, the fog was cut
By springing flame, and the friends faster strode,
Winding through bye-ways to that dear abode.
Alan, impatient, fevered, onward urged
His comrade ; they came nearer to the noise,
And in a fair broad road at last emerged.
Filled with a ragged rout of men and boys
And women ; like a stormy sea it surged.
That blindly, deafly, ruthlessly destroys :
Some carried stones ; some, staves ; some, iron crows
And rails ; some, bludgeons, fit for deadliest blows.
A MODERN APOSTLE.
Some faces were pale, wolfish ; some on fire
With drink, and hope of spoil or forced largess
From wealthy homes ; in tawdry torn attire
The women scarcely hid their nakedness ;
And there were jests, foul as the city mire
Whose old stains clung to many a tattered dress :
Such was the tide that towards the suburb rolled
Where Ella dwelt. One moment, speechless, cold,
Stood Alan : then, with sudden leap, he sprang
On a low wall, and beckoned to the crowd
That fought, broke windows, trampled gardens, sang
And swore, around him ; but his voice rose loud.
And through the clamour like a trumpet rang ;
Its clear bold accents for a minute cowed
The people ; or perchance they thought he came
To spur them forward to their desperate game.
*' My friends !" he cried, " all human hopes and lives
Are truly one ; no man can harm another
But blindly with his proper Self he strives.
His own soul in the body of his brother :
In you, in all, the spark of Truth survives —
Is there no father here, is there no mother,
No husband, wife or friend, who knows the tie
Which makes two beings one until they die ?
A MODERN APOSTLE.
" That tie is but an image and a sign
Of universal kinship — to reveal
How men are sharers in the life Divine :
Think not the rich man's woe the poor man's weal !
When the brain languishes the heart must pine ;
To hate is atheism, and to steal
Is sacrilege ; to murder, suicide :
I too have erred, who should have been your guide ;
" Oft I spoke rashly, for my heart was sore
To see you suffer ; humbly I avow
My fault, my crime — Ah help me to restore
The peace I troubled ; let me lead you now
Back to your homes." Then rose an angry roar,
And a great stone struck Alan on the brow.
He staggered ; and before his friend could bound
To save him, he fell prone with heavy sound.
George raised him in his arms — bleeding, death-white,.
Unconscious — then to face the crowd he turned :
"This is the man who laboured day and night
For you and for your children — yes, he burned
His life away, and loved you in despite
Of all ingratitude, and still returned
Good for your evil — his own wants denied
For you — that you might live, he would have died.
J MODERN APOSTLE.
" And you have slain him. Help me, some of you,
To stanch his wounds — those whom he visited
When they were ill, and brought them aid — those, too,
Who starved, until he gave them his own bread —
And if by chance there should be here a few
Who were in prison, and he came and said
Kind words of hope — 'tis only these I pray
Now for their help to carry him away
" And bear him to his friends." The crowd was hushed.
But he who seemed the chief, a strong tall man,
Came forth with halting step, and features flushed.
And look half-shamed, half-sorry, and began —
" The parson nursed me when my foot was crushed,
I would not do him harm. Here, Ned and Dan,
Help us to carry him — and you, John, go
Quick, for a doctor — 'tis an ugly blow,
" But worse have mended." Now the throng, subdued
Almost to soberness, his words obeyed.
Seeming a funeral pageant motley-hued :
As once through Florence paced a cavalcade
Of skeletons and spectres — all the brood
Of Famine and of Death — such show they made ;
And bearing Alan in procession grim
Straightway to Ella's home they carried him.
A MODERN APOSTLE. 223
They passed fair gardened homes that rich men build,
But every man was hidden, as a rat
Hides in his hole ; like birds affrighted, stilled
By coming storm, crouched those who " eat the fat
And drink the sweet," that Scripture be fulfilled —
On, till George saw the house where Ella sat
Alone, for both her parents were away,
Spending in Rome their Easter holiday.
She all the day had shivered in suspense
For Alan's safety, growing sick with fear.
And making now and then a vain pretence
To read, but straining all the while her ear,
And starting at each murmur, to see whence
The voices came ; for as they grew more clear
She felt, she knew, that Alan must be nigh,
To turn the rabble backward, or to die.
There came a roar — she shuddered — then a lull — •
She waited at the window, in her dread,
And soon she heard again the murmurs dull.
And saw at last a strange procession, led
By men who bore some burden pitiful—
Was it a comrade, wounded — dying — dead ?
But knew she not the figure and the gait
Of Alan's friend ? Oh Heaven ! Came they too late.
224 --/ MODERN APOSTLE.
And did they bring him dead, that she might see
His face, and weep with unavaiHng woe?
Nearer they came and nearer — Yes, 'twas he —
Her cheeks turned white, her heart stood still, as though
She too must fall ; but, tottering dizzily,
She left her room in piteous need to know
The truth — with quivering hands unbarred the door.
And ran to meet the crowd, and what it bore.
Creorge saw her coming in her breathless haste,
With wide eyes, feet that terror seemed to spur,
Long hair unknotted, floating to her waist ;
Till then, he scarce had spent a thought on her,
But now he groaned ; 'twere easier to have faced
A furious mob ; he felt a murderer :
Forward he stepped, and lest her strength should fail,
Stayed her, and told, as best he might, the tale.
" He is not dead !" she cried — " not dead !" and then
Her heart grew stronger ; Alan's face she saw
And .scarcely trembled ; to those rugged men.
Those hungering, thirsting breakers of the law,
She .spoke, with accents that seemed alien
To her own voice ; they listened half in awe.
And bore him to the house ; and then dispersed
With money for their hunger and their thirst.
A MODERN APOSTLE. 225
Alan lay still unconscious ; months of toil,
And care, and grief, had done their work by stealth ;
The mental and the physical turmoil,
The evil deeds of poverty and wealth.
The city's filth and crime, that could not soil
His spirit, drained away his body's health :
" But he will live !" cried Ella, fain to grope
For light. The surgeon said, " There still is hope."
"There still is hope." Thus sounds the first low note,
The first faint tremor of the passing bell !
"There still is hope." The dread that loomed remote
Draws near ; the poison-pang we sought to quell
Stings sharper for this futile antidote :
So heavy on her ears the comfort fell —
" There still is hope." She watched his sighing breal' ,
Feeling herself the very pains of death.
226 A MODERN APOSTLE.
VI.
Er.LA kept anxious vigil by the bed :
How strange it is to watch through creeping hours
A face which was Thought's temple, and instead
To find blanlv nothingness, or jarring powers :
For mind, and soul, and senses, all are fled,
And weirdly wander in a world not ours.
Some Tartarus, whereof we seek the key,
Striving to follow and to set them free.
Ere night, there came a change ; for Alan woke
From torpor to delirium ; now he seemed
To see again his Vision, and invoke
With prayer, some Power divine ; anon, he dreamed
Of his old home and his old faith, and broke
Into sad cries of " Mother !" and there streamed
From his hot lips full many a wonder wild
Of elves, and wraiths, and witches who beguiled
A MODERN APOSTLE. 227
The hearts of chieftains. Then he wandered back
From childish days, and softly moaned the name
Of Ella ; or he trod his wonted track
'Mid squalor and disease, and vice and shame.
Crying, " I cannot eat while others lack,
I eat their flesh !" But still again he came
To that old home, and raved with strange despair
Because he could not find his mother there.
And Ella listened ; these lamentings moved
Her inmost heart ; her sorrowing eyes grew dim
With bitterer tears — this woman she had loved,
Tenderly loved, when first betrothed to him,
But, at the severance, haply it behoved
A prophet's mother to resent the whim
That harmed her idol ; and the two, estranged,
For many months no greeting word had changed.
And who would tell the mother ? She must come ;
But who would say to her — " Your son is lying
Wounded to death — he wakes from swoonings dumb
To rave and moan — perchance he may be dying
E'en while I speak." Poor Ella, cold and numb,
Pondered of this, and felt her heart replying —
" You, you must bear the message — only you
Have wrecked his life — take anguish as your due.
228 A MODERN APOSTLE.
As thus she mused, George entered. " Go awhile,"
He said, " and sleep, for you are tired and worn.
And I will watch." She gave a faint wan smile
At thought of sleep, with this envenomed thorn
Deep in her breast — better the weary mile
To Alan's home — better to greet the morn
With wakeful eyes, than half to see its beams
In the sad Limbo of unslumbrous dreams.
But forth she went ; and loitering at the gate
She saw that stalwart limping rioter
Who championed Alan 'gainst the blinded hate
Of the brute mob. No tumult was astir.
But only this one man had come to wait
For news. In whispering tones he questioned her.
As though a louder sound the ear might reach
Of him who heard but his own babbling speech.
And when she told her errand, he besought
That he might guide her through the darkening streets,
For some of those who swore and robbed and fought
That morning, were not sated with their feats ;
He had no fear — he never would be cauglit
By any slow policeman on his beats ;
She would be safe with him — for well enough
His face was known to every city rough.
A MODERN APOSTLE. 229
So, with her strange companion, Ella wound
Through many streets, with foot that could not tire,
And scarcely saw the wrecks that lay around.
The havoc wrought by pillage and by fire ;
Nor did her speed grow slack, until she found
Her goal ; and then, refusing gift or hire.
Her guide departed ; timidly she knocked,
And a slow trembling hand the door unlocked.
And Ella stepped into the homely room
Where, two years past, Alan his Vision told ;
There, sitting upright in the fire-lit gloom.
Was the grey father, stern yet unconsoled.
Still mourning for his son's eternal doom :
The careworn mother, thinner than of old.
Flitted from spot to spot, or crouching sate
Like a poor bird with nest made desolate.
I know not how the story was begun,
Nor ended how ; the father's face, hard-set.
Just quivered — " Lord," he said, " Thy will be done !"
But with reluctant tears his eyes grew wet.
Oozing like drops of blood — " My son, my son !"
He murmured, seeming all things to forget
Save sorrow ; but the mother, pallid, fierce.
Gazed at the girl, as though she fain would pierce
A MODERN APOSTLE.
Her heart. " Your foult !" she cried — " it is your fault !
His blood be on your head, if he must die ;
Like the proud Pharisees, who did exalt
Their barren lore, and shouted ' Crucify !'
You slew my son !" But now the tear-drops salt
Choked her mad words ; and Ella made reply
By kneeling at her feet and weeping — " Nay,
Mother ! it was myself I meant to slay."
She kissed the slender hand, by toil made hard.
And the poor mother, seeing her so mild.
And feeling the hot tears, her heart unbarred
With quick repentance for those plainings wild ;
Saying — " Forgive me — kiss me — I should guard
My lips from evil. Take me to my child."
The women clung together ; then the three
Set out on their sad errand silently.
They neared the house with many a wordless prayer,
And knew not whether that they came to seek
Were life or death : (ieorge met them on the stair
With mien so haggard, that it seemed to speak
All that they dreaded ; but he said, " Prepare
To see him — he is conscious, but as weak
As any babe, and his unceasing cry
Is ' Let my mother come before I die !' "
A MODERN APOSTLE. 231
And the two parents, by his tone bereft
Well-nigh of hope, passed to the sick man's side ;
While Ella in her loneUness was left
Waiting without, uncalled. Should Death divide
Their hearts for ever, leaving still the cleft
Between his soul and hers unbridged and wide ?
She lingered ; oft against her will she heard
The tender sighing of a farewell word.
Was there for her no longing and no call,
Not even one poor good-bye message, sent
Like ears of corn that careless hands let fall
For one who gleans — was this her punishment ?
Was parting not enough, without the gall
Of this immedicable pain, unblent
With joy, and stinging backward, till at last
It should empoison all the sacred Past ?
But now the two came out to her ; their tears
Were dried, and in their faces there was calm ;
The father seemed as one who dimly hears
The music of some new revealing psalm ;
The mother, past all hopes and past all fears
And memories of anger, with cold palm
Pressed Ella's hand^" Go in," she said, " be brave,
He loves you now — yes, even to the grave."
232 ^ xMODEKN APOSTLE.
He loved her — then the utmost bitterness
Was gone from pain, leaving remembered joy
Unsullied — happy they who still possess
Gladness in grief embalmed, that cannot cloy
With full fruition, nor by time grow less.
Nor can estrangement any more destroy
This Love ideal : thus doth Heaven accord
Through Death, its one immutable reward.
She went in softly ; he lay white and still.
Though his dark eyes unquenched were burning clear ;
She laid her hand in his, already chill,
And heard his faint voice whisper, " Dear, more dear
In death — forgive me, Ella, and fulfil
My last petition, for the end is near,
Is close ; oh stay, and hold awhile my hand.
And listen — Q)\-\\^ you will understand.
" Stay with me, while I linger on the verge
Of the unknown abyss, yet void of awe
And fear, and ecstasy ; I hear a dirge
Wailing that Vision which of old I saw ;
Yet not in darkness but in glory merge
My dreams, and yield to some transcendent Law,
I know not how ; for all is plunged and drowned
In the bright waters of this peace profound.
A MODERN APOSTLE. 233
" But that my eyesight wanes, now might I see ;
But that my thoughts grow dim, at last might learn ;
But that sleep weighs me down so wearily.
Rise to that Truth, for whose pure light I yearn :
Unworshipped on her mount she dwells, in free
And maiden loneliness ; her wooers turn
Toward fair reflected images, that gleam
And waver with the mist or with the stream.
" I cannot think, and scarcely can I feel —
But you are strong, and now again you shine
Truth's radiant herald, come to wound and heal
A generation hungry for a sign —
Be no sign granted, saving to unseal
The meaning of the ages, and unshrine
All errors, all illusions — theirs, my own :
For though the wine-press that I trod alone
" Held blood-red grapes from the volcano's edge,
Yet the true purple full-ripe fruit I missed :
Seek you and find ; oh give this one last pledge —
Ella, my Love — my Wife I" His lips she kissed
With tender lingering pressure : sacrilege
It seemed, to mar that silent Eucharist
By uttered vow ; the very soul of each
Shone visible, disrobed of veiling speech.
234 A MODERN APOSTLE.
Grieve not for them ; hut rather grieve for such
As live with what they love, and night and noon
Have joy of gentle voice and kindly touch,
Yet famish for some unimagined boon ;
Too little Heaven they have, and all too much
Of Earth, whose bounties deaden, late or soon,
Their aspiration ; or its torrent-force
Frays out some fleshly or ethereal course.
For such your grief ; what husbands and their wives
Once in long years each other's soul can see ?
But these found all to which high Passion strives —
Perfect communion, from cold symbols free,
The fleeting quintessence of myriad lives,
A concentrated brief Eternity,
The mountain-vista of an endless age
Not known by weary winding pilgrimage.
At length she spoke — " Myself I dedicate
To this great service : all my spirit's jiower —
Through joy and grief, in good or evil fate.
Whether the desert pathways bud and flower.
Or the fair fields be ravaged by man's hate —
Shall bear the superscription of this hour :
I give whate'er I have of strength and skill ;
Trust me in this — what Woman can, I will."
A MODERN APOSTLE. 235
Then she was silent : for his look was fraught
With peace that quenches all desire and dread.
Yet spares the impress of each noble thought
That ruled in life the converse of the dead ;
As Night brings every trivial thing to nought,
While still the mountains tower, the oceans spread :
Long time she knelt ; and when at last she rose
Her features almost mirrored his repose.
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
( 239
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE
In some strange waking vision I beheld
A man and woman in their summer prime,
Who seemed memorial forms of classic eld,
And yet the fairest, newest births of Time ;
My heart they rapt, my questionings they quelled :
But now I bid my plain ungilded rhyme
Repeat the marvels that I saw and heard
Vivid in colour and distinct in word.
The man was such as Grecian sculptors took
For model of a god ; he well might cope
With any deity who ever shook
The lance or lyre ; he seemed incarnate Hope :
And there was joyous foresight in his look,
As though the Present were a telescope
Through which appeared the Future's nebulous haze
Clear sky, with constellated suns ablaze.
240 THE EIJXIR OF LIFE.
Yet, gazing in his dark unfathomcd eyes,
You might behold long mournful ages pass,
Each laying down a load of mysteries
Solved by his mind ; you saw, as in a glass,
Your own thoughts and the world's thoughts, mad or wise,
Fleet, ever adding to the winnowed mass ;
As though Apollo, King of laughing Hours,
With Time's old scythe should reap the grass and flowers.
Tall was the woman ; beautiful and lithe,
Killed full of life in eye, and lip, and hair,
Whose coils like dull-gold serpents seemed to writhe
About her royal forehead broad and fair ;
Her sapphire eyes were bright, their glance was blithe,
Yet if you caught it sideways, unaware,
Now and again, behind the lustre glad
Floated a shade, half cynic and half sad.
One moment she would seem an angel, fresh
From Heaven, and bringing joyful news to man ;
The next, a shuddering hint of World and Flesh
And Devil, swiftly through your senses ran ;
Hut then her eyes and voice would quite enmesh
Your soul, and you could neither bless nor ban —
Happy, if ere the Siren's isle you passed
Your Fate had lashed you safely to the mast !
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 241
Together in a frescoed hall they sate,
Storied with pictures fair of many lands :
Old Rome, and sad Palmyra desolate.
And Alpine summits, and Arabian sands ;
Fair ladies rode with knights inamorate,
And little children played in merry bands ;
But not a group so bright was painted there
That it might shadow forth the living pair.
He held her hand, yet seemed to wander through
Long years of thought ; till she the silence broke,
And made of her soft voice a silken clue
To guide him back ; these gentle words she spoke — ■
" Dearest, this day you promised to endue
My heart with mirth celestial, and evoke
Visions of joy, whose glories should prevail
O'er all the marvels of Arabian tale."
Light was her tone ; but he, with accent grave,
Said — " Hear me, Marah ! In my power I keep
A boon more precious than you hope or crave,
Or even dream in waking or in sleep ;
Such bridal gift as no man ever gave
To his fair Empress ; a delight as deep
E'en as our love, which ne'er shall fade and flee
Like pallid loves of weak mortality.
242 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
" Nay, start not, shrink not ! Ages have gone by
Since in a slumbrous (lernian town I dwelt.
And from my jutting gable saw the sky
Narrowed but clear ; there did my childhood melt
In fires of youth ; and every day more high
Ran my life's rushing stream, until I felt
That never must chill Death the torrent freeze.
But it must spread and foam in boundless seas.
" Life, dear Life, human Life ! for this I prayed —
To be a goblet filled up to the brim
With Life's rich wine ; not an ethereal shade,
A naked spirit passionless and dim,
But perfect Man, imperishably made,
With Immortality in heart and limb,
And brain whose orbed empire might sufifice
To hold the World and make it Paradise.
" Thus hoping, searching, in alchemic toil
I spent the hours of my poor mortal day.
Till Time took youth and vigour as a spoil,
And bent my frame, and made my temples grey :
Yet still I watched my costly ])Otions boil,
And with strange herbs and metals did assay
To win, and ever hold in bridal clasp
The Life that flitting mocked my palsied grasp.
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 243
" But daily farther from the goal I swerved ;
Sight left my eyes, and skill my fingers lean :
' Sweet Life ' — I cried — ' for whom I long have served,
Whose glorious beauty I from far have seen,
Not such reward thy votary deserved,
Not this thy warrior's guerdon should have been —
At last, at last, thy full fruition give,
Let me not die, ere I have learned to live !
" ' Yet if thy renovating touch divine
Too late, too late, be laid on these grey hairs,
I conquer still, though strength should not be mine
To drink the cup my dying hand prepares ;
Myself, but not my triumph, I resign,
For all mankind shall be my deathless heirs :
I, friendless, childless, poor, will yet b:i(iueathe
One boon — Eternity for all who breathe !'
" That night, with aching eyes and weary brain.
Over a seething flask I sadly hung.
And the last precious drops that I could strain
From my necessities, therein I flung.
Half-fearing 'twere a senile fancy vain
That one so worn and wrinkled could grow young :
Suddenly, strangely, the thick wizard-broth
Foamed upward in my face with amber froth.
244 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
" It fell -and bright the licjuid grew and pure
Like molten topaz ; and a perfume rose
Whose sweetness might a Moslem saint allure
To drink damnation with his I'rophet's foes :
Scarce could my soul this lightning-hope endure,
My knees were fain to yield, my eyes to close :
I stretched a hand, blind-groping, as I sank
Gasping for breath, and reached the flask, and drank.
" A miracle ! my sight, but now half-quenched.
Pierced through the gloom, and made the lamplight
clear ;
I felt my forehead, with deep cares entrenched,
Orow smooth, and many a sorrow-laden year
Roll like a mist away ; the limbs that blenched
Were buoj'ant, and the heart that cjuaked with fear
Now sang exultantly, in youth renewed.
And strength to bear its own beatitude.
" I dashed the flask to earth with joyous hand —
' Life, human Life, these drops to thee !' I cried :
I ran and leaped ; I felt my soul expand
Till all its pettier hopes were glorified
To a great longing that the Earth should stand
Arrayed in Lnmortality, a bride,
\\'edded to Heaven, not as a beggar-wife,
But bringing her own dower of boundless life.
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 245
" And those bright drops that on the floor I threw
In the exuberant lavishness of health
Brought forth, by magic of their golden dew,
All tints, and shapes, and substances of wealth ;
A glorious sculptured palace round me grew,
Whose mystic builders wrought unseen, by stealth ;
Frescoes there were and statues, gold and gems,
And sceptres, and Imperial diadems.
" Yet all these marvels were but promises
And gracious foretastes of a world unknown ;
I must go forth, a happier Heracles,
With hydra-headed Death to strive alone.
Fill with new wine all poisoned chalices,
Anoint all wounds ; revengeful Time dethrone,
Crowning and sceptring in his stead at last
A perfect Present, that should ne'er be Past.
" I sought the mother-land of many hopes —
Land of the sun, whose summer rays illume
Blue lakes, engarlanded by golden slopes.
And valleys dim with amethystine bloom ;
The wondrous land of scholars, painters. Popes,
The Church's cradle, and the Empire's tomb :
Dear land, my promised Canaan of delights,
Peopled, alas, by soft-tongued Canaanites.
246 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
" I knew fair Florence in her noon-day glow,
And in her late repentance and remorse ;
Saw the first joy of Michel Angelo
When great T.orenzo marked his budding force,
And pacing at Careggi to and fro
Heard silver-voiced Mirandola discourse,
Though from San Marco thrilled a note of fear —
' Repent, repent ! the sword of God is here !'
" And then I entered those Imperial walls
Where every epoch finds its magnet-pole.
And watched the great Cathedral's domed halls
Rise, and Life's yellow Tiber-current roll,
And heard wise Leo and his Cardinals
Wittily prate of God and of the Soul,
Or lightly mock, as Teuton ravings drunk.
The thundering theses of the rebel monk.
" But I beheld a black abyss of lust
And hatred yawn beneath Italia's prime —
Groaning I said, ' Where is a man so just.
So wise, that he should live beyond his time ?
What poet, priest, or woman can I trust
To use in righteousness my gift sublime ?
Or shall I aid the crude one-sided plan
Of friar Augustine or Dominican ?'
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 247
" And so I kept my boon, and sought anew
For one to share it. Now in tranquil seas
I coasted, where they lap with waters blue
The white or ruddy sands ; with westward breeze
I sailed, that proud Iberian land to view
Made Empress by the ill-starred Genoese,
Fain to rule Europe, as she ruled her slaves
In diamond mines beyond Atlantic waves.
" But here, 'mid wealth and courtesy and pride
Methought the vale of Hinnom ever burned,
There tender maids and youths in torture died,
Parents and children, sages, hinds unlearned,
Who all with blind heroic faith defied
Faith blindly tyrannous ; heartsore I turned
From the grim King, who seemed what proverbs tell
Of his Madrid — ' half winter and half hell.'
" Now to the valiant island, which that King
Had thought to win with mightiest armament :
There gladsomely I heard at heaven's gate sing
Blithe birds of morn ; and though the song was blent
With notes unworthy so divine a spring,
A thrill of joy through all my frame it sent :
But not in city or in court I stayed,
Nor joined the wooers of the Royal Maid.
248 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
" It was a midland village that I sought,
AVhcre daisy-banked a placid ri\-cr ran
Past a grey church, and near it dwelt and wrought
A bard whose god-like eyes the heart could scan.
Telling its dreams and humours ; but I thought —
' Nay, let the Poet live, and leave the Man
To die in peace ; he cjuaffs his own rich wine
Of Immortality — what needs he mine ?'
" Again I roamed ; in European wars
I strove, and saw the great Gustavus fall,
In the red carnage that my soul abhors
Mingled, that I might know and suffer all.
Warring, with vanquished or with conquerors,
O'er burning home and shattered city-wall,
Till peace returned — then, tired in heart and hand,
I sought the visions of the Morning Land.
" And first I pilgrimed to the Holy Grave
Where fought of old the flower of Europe's might —
For the benignant Prince of Peace, who gave
Not peace, but sword and fire, long raged the fight :
There now divided Christians scowl and rave,
Armenian, Latin, Greek, and Maronite :
Loathing I left them ; then o'er sand and foam
Passed to an elder worship's dreamful home.
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 249
" Often at night I heard the lion's roaring
From the wild jungles of some pathless wood ;
I saw the zoned Himalayas soaring
To Arctic heights ; and sought a brotherhood
Not found in age-long roving and exploring,
Among the saints of Brahma and of Buddh :
But no fit sharer of a lofty fate
Rose from that primal race degenerate.
" Two human lifetimes, alien from the West
I roved ; then turning, found all Europe lit
With war — with strange convulsions sore distressed ;
And that fair feminine city of keen wit
Which made of Earth and Heaven a graceful jest
Read her own doom in ruddy lightnings writ —
' Summed, weighed, found wanting, rent :' her King was
slain.
Her Queen, her nobles, that the crushed might reign.
*' It was the hey-day of that cursed spawn
Of rebels, bred and schooled by Tyranny,
That dyed them through and through, and now withdrawn
Left them indeed unsovereigned, but not free :
And yet it was the drear and blood-red dawn
Of a new hope for sad Humanity :
I watched a fresh enthusiasm's birth,
Not for high Heaven, but for the suffering Earth.
250 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
" I knew the mail who touched the secret nerve
Of (laUic Hfe, and thrilled it as he would ;
One of those meteor-minds, which never swerve,
But dash straight down to their selected good,
Not orbing in a planet's constant curve,
Nor comet-soaring through infinitude.
But flashing for a moment, earthward hurled,
The iron fragment of some starry world.
" Then sailed I West, to that Republic free
Which bravely to old Britain bade defiance ;
I saw how Christians fostered slavery,
How Freedom with Corruption made alliance ;
And thence returned, to give unrestingly
One life to Metaphysics, one to Science,
And one to Politics, that I might know
The varied springs of human weal and woe.
" Now am I made the King of this fair State,
Which I will rule as mortal man rules not ;
My gathered wisdom will I dedicate
To general concord, of just laws begot ;
Then Paradise shall blossom new-create,
Not marred by any fraudful serpent-plot,
And Truth and Right the human soul uplift.
Till men be worthy of ni}- glorious gift.
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 251
" While still I roamed, my heart I shut and sealed
Against all passionate love ; yet oftentimes
When dark Italian orbs their light revealed,
Or the blue eyes besung in Northern rhymes
Glanced coyly, almost would my spirit yield ;
As though the sure-foot mountaineer who climbs
Some Alpine crag, should loiter on the brink
To pluck the gentian or the mountain pink.
** But in a myriad women, none I found
So filled and flushed with Life's exuberant tide
That through uncounted ages it could bound
And ne'er grow stagnant, weak, or satisfied ;
No joy so rich and vital, that undrowned
On the broad flood in triumph it could ride :
How should a fragile creature, fashioned fair
For her brief hour, my endless being share ?
" But now I have my kingdom and have you
Gloriously framed for an immortal fate.
Almost that regal beauty might subdue
Grim Death, and his predestined hour undate :
Sing and exult ! for we the World make new.
Our dual Star all tranced hopes await ;
The Future is our own — who will may claim
The unregretted Past, of deathful fame.
252 THE ELIXIR OE LIFE.
" And you to-night, this very night, shall drink
Immortal Life." He ceased, and fixed on her
That look, where all the ix;ons seemed to sink
In one bright Now ; but did my senses err.
Or did I see her for an instant shrink
Before she answered, " Dearest harbinger
Of gladness !" with a smile so softly bright
That I believed it in my own despite.
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 253
11.
The Vision changed. And now I saw the Queen
In a fair garden loiter ; at her side
Was one of stalwart frame and princely mien,
His dark eyes bright with passion and with pride,,
Yet not her lord. They reached an arbour green,
Blossomed with roses, and o'er-canopied
^Vith bowering trees ; nor marked amid the shade
A slim shape rustle, like a Dryad-maid.
Marah was speaking, " 'Tis a wondrous tale !
He has the true Elixir — deems me fit
To share it. Marvel not that I am pale !
Oh weary fancy, nevermore to quit
His side, but while the ages drag and trail
In his Elysian theatre to sit,
Or act in dramas classic and sublime
Until I almost long for pantomime !
254 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
" I could have loved him ; but he is a god,
And I am not a goddess or a samt ;
For twenty generations he has trod
This evil earth, seeing through rags and paint
To its vile heart ; and now he bids me plod
With him for slow millennia : sooth, 'tis quaint
That /am chosen by this clear-eyed sage
His Empress, and ensample to the Age !
" I'd worship him, if he were carved in marble.
And every morning I could come and kneel
Before his sacred shrine, and softly warble
The shivering adoration that I feel.
Nor need his philanthropic Law to garble
With any gloss of selfish woe or weal ;
Then could I yield, like pious Christians many.
The pound to C?esar, and to (}od the penny.
" At first, indeed, 'twas sweet and wonderful
To feel my spirit floating, cradled soft
As on some eagle's wings, who left the dull.
Stale, j)etty world, and as he soared aloft
Seemed all my meaner longings to annul ;
But after journeying sunward long and oft
I hunger and grow faint \ the naked glare
Is too intense, the atmosphere too rare.
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 255
" I have not sinned — not yet — but I am weary
Of all the glories of these ether-flights ;
I'm tired of listening to the concert sphery,
Dizzy with gazing from Olympian heights :
Dear mortal planet, unideal, cheery,
Oh give me back thy motley-hued delights —
Give me, for solemn-chanting sun and moon,
A gas-lit ball-room, and a lilting tune !
" I love my life ; and yet a Life Eternal
Is something far too serious and too vast :
'Twere well, I own, to keep one's beauty vernal.
But even vanity might pall at last ;
Better to tempt at once the Powers Infernal
Than with an ever-young enthusiast
Live for Humanity, its evils probe.
And, like old Atlas, hoist the ponderous globe.
" But he will test me — find me out some day,
And know with what delusive light I shone ;
Then will he bid me in his lordly way
With just a touch of sorrow — ' Hence — begone !'
Or else will strip the gauzy wings so gay
From his poor worthless weak ephemeron :
Cruel it were, the fire-fly's life to mar.
Because it is an insect, not a star !
2S6 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
" Hear me, good Hubert ! yet you are not good —
He is a whole infinitude above
Your noblest ; I were happy, if I could
Cleave to him, wed his thought, his virtues prove :
Were I the archetype of womanhood
As he of manhood, then we two might love ;
Then should I deem your passion, at the best.
But a dull fable, or a sorry jest.
"Nay, Hubert, do not frown ! I like you well ;
I am a woman of the world, you know,
Too tired by far to rave about the spell
Of mutual love, and tremblingly to glow
With girlish raptures : but to you I tell
My thoughts and wishes, be they high or low^
That frown again — oh free me from this bond.
Then shall you find me sweet, caressing, fond !
" Oh set me free ! bear me away, away,
To cold Kamschatka or to burning Ind —
If you should shrink or fail, I needs must pray
Some ocean current or some rushing wind
To take me — I am mean, and must obey
My own mean heart ; the boast, ' I have not sinned,
Was vain ; for sinned I have in wish and thought -
Cares Conscience in what stuff the sin is wrouuln ?"
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 257
He clasped her close. " Fair Queen of my desire,
Flower of all loveliness ! I do your will
Because it is my own, with heart on fire —
But from the plan is one thing lacking still ;
For we two, sweetest Marah, could not tire,
And in millennia could not take our fill
Of joyance — we should gaily revel on,
And wondering cry — ' Another cycle gone !'
"Short life is all a mocking game of chance ;
Years are the counters — one by one we lose
And soon grow bankrupt — lucky Circumstance
Comes late, and we its blandishments refuse
Because we are too old to sing or dance,
Love we forget, and wealth we cannot use :
Man stakes his all upon a single cast —
Give him a myriad, and he wins at last.
" Then let us of that magic wine partake
This night, and fathom all the depths of pleasure.
And live without satiety or ache
Our feastful days, that Time forgets to measure :
How shall we cheat this chemist-King, and make
Ourselves possessors of his liquid treasure ?
His servants love him ; vainly should we try
With stores of gold the loyal fools to buy.
258 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
" But I will give you a prepotent draught
To set before your deathless lord to-night,
Saying — ' Come, pledge me ! not till you have quaffed
This cup, I taste of your Elixir's might !'
So shall we capture life and love by craft.
For as he drinks, he will be reft of sight.
Hearing, and thought, by slumber — you are free !
Then quick ! the goblet seize, and haste to me
" That we may drink deep, deep, of boundless bliss "-
But she — " It is not poison ?" faintly asked —
" To poison he is mortal — spare me this !"
Lord Hubert turned aside ; the fiend unmasked
Glared from his face ; but soon with tender kiss
Again his power of smooth deceit he tasked.
Saying — " This potion does not harm, but cures —
I would not hurt a hound that had been yours !"
The foliage shook : they saw a light shape spring.
And toward the palace dart. "We are betrayed,"
Cried Marah, " hastes she not to warn the King ?
Prate, ready tongue ! — a ready hand had stayed
Her flight. I know her — heard her carolling
That foolish story of the beggar-maid
And King Cophetua, long ere I was doomed
To life, and in immortal love entombed."
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 259
Leaving the guilty pair in their dismay,
My dream pursued the maiden's flying feet ;
Fragile she was, and slender as a fay.
Fair streamed her tresses as she glided fleet.
Her white robe flashed — she sped with no delay
Till at the gate I heard her voice entreat
That she might see her sovereign, kind to grant
The prayers of many a humble suppliant.
They led her where he sate ; then, cowering low.
She said — " My liege, I oft have made your sport —
You know me not, perchance — how should you know
A simple singing-maiden of your court ?
I would not seek you for my private woe,
But I have that to tell which would extort
Language, though I were dumb, and give me breath
For warning speech, though cold I lay in death."
She faltered — then at once she oped the sluice
Of words and tears, and told the plot accurst,
Adding at last, in weeping self-excuse —
" I had not stayed to listen, but the first
Word of the Queen foreshadowed some abuse
Of your deep love — must I not learn the worst.
And fly to save my monarch from the snare ?
Trust me, oh King ! I have no other prayer."
26o THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
But he abashed her with a searching look —
"You have an honest face," he said, " but sure
A most deceiving fancy ; you mistook
Faces or meanings. Nay ! I am secure —
Go, foolish damsel, to your singing-book !
Hubert I trust not, but the Queen is pure —
Pure as the radiant ether. She shall come
And speak her innocence, and strike you dumb."
He said and smiled ; then to the Queen he sent
Praying her presence. Marah came, with lips
Pale but firm-set, and haughty eyes that meant
To look unchanged on glory or eclipse ;
But when she saw her lord, that bold intent
Slipped from her, like the outworn slough that slips
From a snake's body ; and forgetting pride
She fell before him. " I have sinned," she cried,
" And am not worthy to be called your wife —
No, nor your slave ! That coward in will and deed,
Whose false lips bade me steal your cup of life.
Has fled, and basely left me at my need,
A double traitor. Let the vengeful knife
End my despair — nay, rather will I plead
That you, so merciful, will grant me time
For penitence — perchance forgive my crime
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 261
" At last, and — dare I think it ? — in the end
Take back the woman whom you justly spurned,
To be — ah, not your wife — but yet your friend,
Long hence, when all my follies are unlearned :
Oh, by the love you bore me, hear and bend.
And pardon !" But from that fair form he turned
As from some loathly creature misbegot—
Crying — " Nay, woman ! of my love speak not —
"What I loved is not, and has never been ;
It dies where it was born — in my own heart ;
Yours are the form, the features, and the mien.
As Hell may hold a seraph's counterpart :
But I reproach you not ; I should have seen,
I should have better known the Siren's art :
Shall not the sage Physician's blame be mute
When he has pressed for wine the poison-fruit ?
" You were to me a light, illusive ghost,
Not Hving flesh : as though a man should find
Some portrait fair, and foolishly should boast
That he in eyes and lips can read the mind,
And know the heart's recesses innermost,
And so should give himself with passion blind
To a mere phantom — worshipping perchance
The painter's flattery of a harlot's glance.
262 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
" You loved your life — the life you understood :
No man but prizes that which he may call
His life, and lightly names that primal good
In common phrase, and symbols read by all,
Yet new translated by each alien mood :
The freeman speaks one language with the thrall,
And yet the simplest words of love and hate,
Passing from one to other, shed their freight.
" Calm is my speech, because my heart is cold,
Cold, cold, by you fast frozen, (io your way —
For when that luring fairness I behold.
And hear the voice, well-loved but yesterday,
I feel as when I grew infirm and old.
And Life fled from me with a mocking Nay :
Go, Marah — soul and body you bereave
Of youth, and only Age's heart-ache leave."
" Marah !" She seemed to shudder at the name ;
Perchance some tardy touch of penitence
Or late-awakening love had stirred her frame.
Deep-thrilling till it pricked the inward sense :
Trembling she rose, and hung her head in shame
As though her beauty mirrored her offence ;
Then forth she went, with slow, uncertain pace,
And hands that strove to hide her drooping face.
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 263
Now the pale singing-maiden dared to draw
Near to the King, till at his feet she knelt,
But silently she gazed, held back by awe
From murmuring or from chanting what she felt ;
And when the timid, upturned look he saw
Gently he spoke — " Fear not — for you have dealt
Wisely and loyally ; you shall not lose
Your recompense." But she replied — " I choose
" No thanks, or else an infinite reward —
Make me immortal ! not that life is sweet.
But should your grace this sovereign boon accord
I may learn wisdom, sitting at your feet ;
Till haply, in a myriad years, my Lord
Might deem me worthy — but it is not meet
To babble thus." That shame was in her cheeks,
Which, striving to be secret, plainlier speaks.
He laid a pitying hand upon her head — ■
" Peace, gentle child ! You know not what you seek ;
Calm is the grave, and restful are the dead.
But Life is rude, and tempest-tost, and bleak,
And you will tire ere threescore years have sped :
Your nature is too womanly and weak
To drink my cup, or watch one age with me
In the World's garden of Gethsemane."
264 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
Then she too stole away, and he was left
In darkness and alone. I thought he strove
To disentangle all the ravelled weft
Of wrath and weariness, and scorn and love ;
At first like the unquiet shade, long reft
Of hope, who paces some Tartarean grove :
But when he spoke, his voice, though sad, untuned.
Told not of an immedicable wound.
*' Marah ! with mind that might have soared beyond
The highest Heaven of woman, yet was bent
Even to Hell ! was it for you I conned
The World — an age to every lineament ?
If I were mortal, now must I despond,
Or from despair step downward to content :
But he whose portion is perpetual youth
May watch and fail, and still have time for Truth.
" Love shrivels to black dust, but leaves alive
Duty and Hope. When not a flower remains
Unblighted, still the leafy boughs survive.
And still the sap is mounting in their veins ;
No more, no more, my lonely life shall strive
To put forth blossoms, nurturing canker-stains ;
Yet shall the tree aspire, and gather might
By broader foliage from a clearer light.
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 265.
" Too late, too late ! such dolorous cry was mine,
Such words my doubting spirit sighed of yore ;
They are the brand of death — the fatal sign
Proving wise man, with all his dear-bought lore
Of evil and of good, not yet divine :
' Too late, too late !' I know the words no more —
* Live and prevail !' is written in their stead,
In golden letters for their sanguined red.
" Death, living death ! thou canst not bid me grieve
Eternally, because a woman's lip
Was beautiful and cunning to deceive :
Now, since nor love is mine nor fellowship,
More gloriously my life I will enweave
With general gladness, and for ever strip
My soul of passion ; even as the Sun
Lavishes glowing heat, but garners none.
" All private hope is frail and fugitive,
Dead if it miss or if it reach its goal ;
There is one way of peace, but one — to live
The universal Life ; to make the whole
Of Nature mine ; to feel the laws which give
Form to her Being, sovereign in my soul :
By this one road, enfranchisement I gain
From the heart-stifling narrowness of pain.
266 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
" Thus I exalt this anguish finely-nerved
To poignant thought and aspiration keen :
Oh Life, stern Life, for whom in woe I served,
Whose veiled beauty I so long have seen.
If such reward thy votary deserved,
If this thy warrior's guerdon should have been,
At last, at last, be perfect bounty shown.
And all thy pulses vibrate in my own !
" Come to me, come to me, from sea and star !
From all thy homes, from all thy fountains, come [
Oh let me feel thy throbbings near and far,
And give full utterance to thy voices dumb :
Make me thy true, thy radiant Avatar,
And in my action concentrate the sum
Of thy unseen endeavours ; let its plan
Image the secret destiny of Man.
" Surely thy end and meaning is not loss,
Surely thou workest to some joy untold ;
Some Book of Life there is, not writ across
With runes of woe and dirges manifold ;
Some fire thou hast, to purge away the dross
Of Death, deej) grained in thy purest gold :
From all things save the (quintessence of Thee —
From Hate, from Love — oh Life, deliver me !"
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 267
Then was he silent ; in that human breast
Immortal, sorrow seemed at war with thought ;
The tears burst forth : like the empoisoned vest
Of Jove-born Heracles, remembrance wrought :
Fainter, more distant, grew the murmurs pressed
From that heroic heart ; my Vision, fraught
With marvels, faded, and a chilly stream
Of work-day light poured in and quenched the dream.
THE STORY OF CLARICE.
( 271
THE STORY OF CLARICE.
I.
In an old house, wind-haunted, bare, and grim,
Fair Clarice and her father lived alone
With books for comrades ; books were slaves to him
But friends to her ; among them she had grown
For well-nigh twenty summers ; though the sage
Who gave her being, scarcely knew her age.
Like a wise pedlar, vending where he can
A ribbon, a gilt pin, a crystal bead.
That yellow, smoke-dried, literary man
Wrote books that all might quote, though none would
read :
He raked the dust-heaps of the Court of France,
And left his daughter to herself — and Chance.
But she, in virgin majesty serene,
Whom few had dared to love, and none to woo.
Wore learning as a long-descended queen
Her robes and crown doth royally endue ;
As though what others con with aching head
This maiden knew by right inherited.
272 THE STORY OF CLARICE.
Stately, with clear grey eyes and flaxen hair,
She might have seemed Athene, wise and chaste,
Save that no lofty helmet she did wear.
Nor aegis buckled to her slender waist ;
Nor could she teach what worldly snares to shun,
As the great Goddess taught Ulysses' son.
Grave was her mouth, and yet was formed for smiles ;
Pale were her cheeks — how lovely, had they blushed !
No sweet gay looks were hers, no girlish wiles :
Not that her woman's instincts had been crushed ;
But, like azaleas in a darkened room,
They had not air and light enough to bloom.
I said the maid was left to Chance — 'tis true —
But that Divinity has divers shapes ;
Now, she appears an apple rich of hue,
Eve's fruit or Discord's — now, the juice of grapes,
Promising mirth — now, a fair human form,
With tender words, and sighs, and love-looks warm.
She came to Clarice as a scholar young.
The secretary of her pedant sire ;
Gentle of mien and elocjuent of tongue
He spoke with something of a poet's fire :
Well might accomplished Wilfred hope to gain
'I'he maiden's guileless heart and book-learn'd brain.
THE SrORY OF CLARICE. 272
His mind was all o'ergrown with metaphor,
With tropes that simulate and stifle thought ;
Right glibly could he wage a wordy war,
Skilled in debate, not lightly tripped or caught :
Yet oft with her he faltered and grew hoarse,
And lost the gilded thread of his discourse.
His face — in sooth, it was a handsome face,
Quick to express whate'er he dreamed or felt ;
His dark eyes glowed with all-subduing grace.
Sure of their power to brighten, kindle, melt :
Yet Wilfred's practised heart poor Clarice stole,
And reigned unconscious tyrant of his soul.
For, spite of all her wisdom, she was still
So calm, so child-like, and so marble-cold,
She did not know he loved her, nor had skill
To read in looks what no sweet words had told
Though tales of love her spirit oft could reach
Like distant warblings in a foreign speech.
She knew the woes of Dido ; she could tell
How Helen set the towers of Troy ablaze :
She thought of Love as a forgotten spell.
Potent in far-off lands, in ancient days ;
Obsolete now, like Magic black and white.
Or the Emission Theory of Light.
274 THE STORY OF CLARICE.
But once she prayed the youth, his day s work done,
To read, and she would Hsten : with fresh hopes
He took the philosophic malison
Of Schopenhauer, king of misanthropes,
And chose the chapter where a sunny mist
Floats o'er the pages of the Pessimist.
For there, in mildest mood, he tells how Art
Reveals the pure Idea, soothes desire.
Sets free the mind, and heals the aching heart ;
But chief he vaunts the magic of the lyre —
Sweet peace and tranquil ecstasy it gives,
And breathes the inmost life of all that lives.
So rai:)t was queenly Clarice, so intent
On Wilfred's voice, he could not meet her look ;
Its very chillness fired him — on he went,
Halting and stammering— then flung down the book
And spoke and gazed as every man, not dunce
Or icicle, has gazed and spoken once.
"Too long have I stood blindfold on the brink
Of Heaven or Hell ; and now I dare at length
To pray for sight — I scarce can speak or think
Because with all my soul and all my strength
And all my life I love you — Clarice, hear !"
And his voice quivered with a passionate fear.
THE STORY OF CLARICE.
275
Oh gentle heart that could not understand !
Oh cruel calm in wondering childlike eyes !
She let him clasp her unresponsive hand,
And froze him with her innocent surprise —
Then plucked her hand away, cut short his prayer,
Fled from the room, and left him planted there.
Blankly he stood ; one miserable course
Alone remained — to take his hat, and go —
Though still he kept the lover's sad resource,
To rail on the cold heart that made his woe.
And switch with savage cane the wayside flower,
And curse himself, and Fate, and Schopenhauer.
276 THE STORY OF CLARICE.
II.
Clarice awoke next morning with the sense
That something she had found, and something lost ;
A little pain she felt, but knew not whence,
A little loosening of her vestal frost :
And she was sad for him — not knowing yet
How lightly men can love, how soon forget.
'Twas a grey, misty, miserable day,
And he would sit, she thought, alone and drear
In dingy lodgings ; or perchance would stray
Out in the busy street, with none to cheer.
No one to sound his lonely heart's abysm.
And comfort him with (Icrman Pessimism.
A stirring as of springtide he had wrought
In that fair breast which yet he could not win ;
She pitied, and she wondered, and she thought :
They say that Pity is to Love akin —
Agreed — with one important reservation —
She is at best a very poor relation.
THE STORY OF CLARICE. 277
For Clarice neither loved the swain himself,
Nor dreamed of being some day some one's wife ;
But he, like those great Germans on the shelf.
Suggested a new way of viewing life :
The first poor swallow does not make a summer,
Yet is he a thrice memorable comer.
Her father — might she speak to him ? In vain !
He would have scorned a modern love affair ;
It never entered his most learned brain
That this unmothered daughter needed care ;
And he was seeking, in that dust-heap dark.
Some mouldy scandal touching Joan of Arc.
She had no comrades ; books were all her friends ;
And even these had failed her utterly,
For none could teach her how to make amends,
None could restore her nature's harmony ;
Nor found she any grief so vague as hers
Recorded by the ancient chroniclers.
The classic beauty either loves her wooer,
Or else she hates him in the same degree :
Daphne was glad to 'scape her bright pursuer
By branching out into a laurel-tree ;
Queen Dido slew herself that luckless day
When the too pious Trojan sailed away.
278 THE STORY OF CLARICE.
These old companions have no kindlj- aid
Yox any heart in lore of love unlearned ;
So, of her fluctuating thoughts afraid,
To Spenser and to Shakespeare Clarice turned,
And read of all sweet ladies wooed by men,
From Una chaste to wifely Imogen.
She read, and pondered, and read o'er again
The moonlight vows of glowing Juliet ;
She read how scorning doubt, delay, and pain.
Sir Scudamour found white-robed Amoret,
And led her by the coy resisting hand
From sovran Cytherea's priestess-band.
And much she marvelled how such things might be ;
" And such things are," she thought, " this very day,
But Heaven in grace has left me fancy-free,
And this is well ; and he is gone away :
My father now must analyse alone
Those blotches on the shield of valiant Joan."
But, as the days and weeks and months went on.
Less calm she grew ; more anxious to believe
That she was happier since the youth had gone,
That she was no fond simjjle girl, to grieve
For a mere fantasy ; but ne'ertheless
She oft forgot her reasoned happiness.
THE STORY OF CLARICE. 279
And having no one else to think about,
She thought of Wilfred ; seemed to see him, hear
Him speak : and his successor was a lout
Who made that inward vision doubly clear ;
For slow he was of speech, and dull of eye,
And short, and round, and rubicund, and shy.
In study and in dreams, one long year passed :
The house seemed shadowed by some direful ban :
For every day was lonelier than the last,
Each book the dullest ever writ by man :
Clarice had half begun to doubt her boast,
When- — a three-volume novel came by post !
She knew the writing — rapid, firm, and fine ;
She looked within — and there was Wilfred's name —
The letters rose and danced along the line,
Mocking her quivering lips and cheeks aflame ;
This was his book, his voice, his heart ; she sighed,
And turned the leaves with a sad thrill of pride.
'Twas the first novel she had ever read —
Think of it, Mudie's votaries and Smith's !
Ambrosially her sky-born soul was fed
On the sun's poetry in old-world myths,
But never knew what wealth of weed and flower
His tireless beams engender hour by hour.
28o THE STORY OF CLARICE.
And Wilfred's heroine was a maiden queen
Like Clarice, bred on such Olympian food :
Surely she saw her own transfigured mien —
" But no," she thought, " for I am not so good,
So fair — some other's j)ortrait this must be,
And her he loves, and has forgotten me."
She read with pain and pleasure ; now she pored.
Jealously, o'er some page with passion fraught.
And wondered what fair Goddess he adored ;
Now, her heart sprang to meet some bright-clad thought;
For thoughts there were, rich ears of harvest-gold,
Not choked with tares and poppies, as of old.
Not one day thus she pored, but many days ;
She knew the volumes three almost by heart,
She lived in the hook's life, thought in its phrase.
And so for weeks she conned and mused apart ;
Till, as it chanced, one afternoon there came
A visitor of antiquarian fame.
A blear-eyed bookworm ; yet he was a shade
More human than her father ; he had penned
Stout vindications of the slandered Maid
Of Orleans, till he half estranged his friend :
He took the scutcheon of that virgin knight,
And either whitewashed, or else washed it white.
THE STORY OF CLARICE. 281
Now the pair sat and argued ; but at last
The visitor, right glad to end the strife
When Clarice entered, left the angry past.
And stooped to safer themes of modern life ;
Of dynamite he spoke, and what could ail
The Irish ; then of books— of Wilfred's tale.
" The book is good — or rather, not so bad
K& one might augur from its great success ;
You know the young romancer — it is sad
When budding brains are doomed to idleness ;
For he is ill — they say, in doubtful case.
Alone, in lodgings," — and he named the place.
Poor Clarice stole away ; the old man's words
Chilled her like death ; she saw the sun grow dim,
And like the fluttering of imprisoned birds
She felt wild pulses throb in every limb :
To a dull corner of her room she crept.
And there, till night was black, she crouched and wept.
But in the midnight watches she began,
Thinking of his pain, to forget her own ;
And all her strenuous soul was bent to plan
How she might aid him ; for that word—" Alone,"
Rang in her ears ; she knew, as ne'er before,
The load of bitter meaning that it bore.
282 THE STORY OF CLARICE.
Pure innocence — what counsellor is worse ? —
Guided and guarded her in all she did ;
She had no friend, not even an old nurse,
To tell her what was lawful, what forbid ;
And so resolved — lacking such nurse or friend- —
That Wilfred she must seek, and watch, and tend.
Then Clarice slept, and dreamed that Wilfred's book
Became a world ; its chapters palaces ;
And she its Goddess : but an earthquake shook
The domes of light and rainbow terraces :
The miraged earth engulphed its phantom race.
And left its two Immortals face to face.
THE STORY OF CLARICE. 283
III.
" How lightly men can love, how soon forget !"
I said — yet some there be not false or fickle :
For one, the blind god wings an arrowlet
No deadlier pointed than a sweetbriar prickle ;
For one, a dart fledged with Tartarean flame,
Barbed, venomed, and thrice cursed in Hecate's name.
Neither the rose-thorn nor the poisoned arrow
Was sped for A\'ilfred — but a keen-tipped shaft,
That rankled deep, yet pierced not bone and marrow,
And still he dined, debated, jested, laughed ;
The while his heart was like a tooth, whose fang
Aches with dull woe, or with fierce throbbing pang.
For one bright image lived before his eyes ;
Where'er he moved, the haunting shape was there :
And long he pondered what rich sacrifice
Could win its beauty ; till the vision fair,
As saint from heaven instructs an eremite,
Taught her sad thrall to worship her aright.
284 THE STORY OF CLARICE.
She made herself the centre of a world
Peopled with gracious phantonis indistinct ;
But, as he gazed, a golden mist upfurled,
And all was clearly shaped, and brightly tinct :
How could he choose but chronicle from far
The story of that new-created star ?
And thus he dreamed and w-rote, until his dream
Was all set forth in fine-writ manuscript ;
He felt, at the last page of the last ream,
As though in some great argosy he shipped
His wealth ; not with the trader's avarice keen,
But as the hard-won ransom of a queen.
And the book prospered wheresoe'er it went ;
Much fame had \\'ilfred, and a little gold,
Yet thought of the one copy that he sent
To Clarice, more than of the hundreds sold ;
And for her smile, had been content to lose
Even the most nectareous of reviews.
'Tis sweet, in truth, to feel oneself a god
Shaping with words a sj)irit-universe.
Touching to various life the formless clod.
Winning fresh glory e'en from Fate perverse.
That foe to plans divine and human toils,
Which like a snake in every Eden coils.
THE STORY OF CLARICE. 285
Such deities are mortal ; and when these,
As once their sire Apollo, love in vain,
And grant the willing mind no hour of ease.
But still toward high achievement strive and strain.
What marvel if the genial visage pales,
And the pulse languishes, and the strength fails ?
'Twas thus with \\'ilfred ; though the bookworm old
Had somewhat overdrawn his piteous plight,
Most truly might that learned man have told
Of many a torpid day and tossing night,
Filled with sick hope of one approving line
From Clarice — but there came no word or sign.
One cheerless afternoon, upon his couch
Brooding he lay ; there came a tap - the door
Soft-opened — sure his dazzled eyes could vouch
That the fair image kept in his heart's core
They saw ; come haply as a cruel wraith.
With cold ethereal gifts to mock his faith.
The maiden entered ; the dim light aslant
On his pale face, constrained her like a charm ;
She felt and seemed a spectral visitant
Of one in mortal straits ; on languid arm
He raised himself, with an uncertain cry
Of " Clarice !" and sank backward wearil}'.
286 THE STORY OF CLARICE.
Then all the wifehood and the motherhood
That in her virgin heart close-hidden lay
Sprang forth : the voice of her quick-pulsing blood
Rebuked her coming, and yet murmured " Stay !"
She stood there an Olympian goddess mute
And blushing, with soft eyes irresolute.
At last she spoke — " Forgive me ! but I knew
That you were ill, alone — and I am come
With fruit and medicines — if I Aveary you,
Tell me, and bid me go "' — here she grew dumb,
And cold, and faint, and all her thoughts forgot,
Because so wild he gazed, yet answered not.
He lay and watched her timid attitudes.
The rosy colour mantling in her cheek,
Her faltering phrases, with brief interludes
Of sighs ; he watched, and did not stir or speak :
But when, like one who in strange peril stands,
She tottered, grew death-pale, flung out her hands,
He rose with desperate hunger in his face,
Clasped her with arms that trembled as they strained,
Kissed the fair head that bent to his embrace.
The lily cheeks, the eyelids violet-veined ;
And held her long, although she faintly strove
To free herself, in very fear of love.
THE STORY OF CLARICE. 287
She did not know the feeling of a kiss,
Except her father's — which had not been warm —
And now she shrank and shuddered from her bhss
E'en as a thirsting wretch before the storm
Of wind and rain, that must renew his life,
Unless he die in the tumultuous strife.
At length he half-released her — "Sweet," he said,
"This is my fruit, my medicine ; were I blind
Now must I see — must live, if I were dead ;
You are my breath, my pulse, my inmost mind ;
Music you are, whose mournfulness and mirth
Reveal the ^^'ill of this phantasmal Earth."
She blushed at his remembrance of that page
In Schopenhauer — "Ah forgive !" she cried —
" I was a tame-bred goldfinch in its cage.
Not knowing that the world is all outside ;
Yet such poor birds will beat the bars, and sing
Of hope, and build an idle nest in Spring."
"Yet nay," he smiled, "3'ou are Olympian-born,
You are Egeria's self, the nymph who blest
Rome's king with laws from Heaven : that gloomy morn
When I arose from nightmare-laden rest
A banished man, you sent your sprite divine.
That pitying led me to the fountain-shrine."
288 THE STORY OF CLARICE.
What more fond vows they uttered — how they planned
The future's wedded joy — I need not tell,
For every love-taught soul will understand ;
Nor how, when twilight came, they broke the spell
Reluctantly, that Clarice home might haste.
Yet once again, and still once more embraced.
That night she dreamed that over fertile ground
And blossomed herbage the two lovers trod ;
The air was filled with an /Eolian sound
That sang of secret life beneath the sod,
And all pure fragrances of flower and fruit
Lived in the music of that fitful lute.
Of couching flocks it chanted ; of the bird
Nested in shade ; of all things that have breath ;
Of human fate ; and still entranced they heard.
And knew the harmonies of Birth and Death :
Till downward flowed the dream, and bore her deep
Into the dark unhaunted caves of Sleep.
KESIPISCENTIA, Etc.
291 )
RESIPISCENTIA.
" Ye must he horn again."
First Voice.
Good morrow, comrade ! Whence that look elate ?
Where are thy sins and fears, a mocking host ?
One week ago, thou wast as I, who hate
Both day and night — day most.
Second Voice.
(Uad tidings of great joy ! that host is gone !
I prayed to Christ an unbelieving prayer,
Half blasphemous, half mad — but straight there shone
Into my soul's despair
A strange, pure light — then on my brow I felt
A healing hand, and on my sleepless eyes ;
Till, knowing nothing, feeling all, I knelt.
And with deep groans and sighs
292 KESIPISCENTIA.
Yielded to Christ my soul, its secret need,
Its woe, its doubt, its dread, its self-disdain,
Its myriad petty sins, that grow and breed.
And, mob-like, rule the brain.
All these he took away — he made me yield
The last regret, the lingering sense of wronj.
I am as one from year-long tortures healed,
Made sound, and hale, and strong —
Who every morning feels a sweet new joy
Because he wakes without the accustomed pain
Who runs and leaps more lightly than a boy.
Having been born again
Into a long-forgotten world of health,
Where he may woo bright eyes, nor need to fear
That but in pity or in lust of wealth
They feign to hold him dear.
Where he with other men may strain and strive-
To win he scarcely craves — let it suffice
That heart, brain, limbs, so bounteously alive
Are his full i'aradise.
RESIPISCENTIA. 293
Oh come and taste and see what virtues lie
In this Elixir that has made me whole —
Though thou be sick to death, thou shalt not die-
Repent, and heal thy soul !
First Voice.
Brave words, my friend — I do not grudge thy mirth ;
Though life be one remorse, I yet endure,
Well knowing there be ills upon this earth
Which have not any cure.
Thou hast been lame awhile, and now canst run ;
Awhile thou hast been blind, but seest now :
Go, leap and praise thy God for strength new-won-
But I am not as thou.
Pain comes of sudden hurt or slow disease ;
Break thou a bone, the surgeon sets it well —
But show him leprous sores — will he cure these ?
Alas, thou canst not tell.
294
RESIPISCENTIA.
Life as it is, and must be, and has been
No piecemeal penitence can show aright,
Deeming the one part foul, the other clean,
Here black, and there snow-white.
That this day week, I left my task unwrought ;
That yesterday, I said not what I meant ;
That one hour since, I grossly sinned in thought-
Not thus do I repent.
Nor do I lay a finger on my shame,
Calling this nerve, that muscle, falsely built ;
I can but say — "This Self, this physical frame,
Is one incarnate Guilt."
Could I believe thy glorious Gospel true,
That were no cure for this organic ill :
Can Christ unweave my tissues, mould anew
The matrix of my will ?
My grief has no beginning and no end ;
I do repent of antenatal sin.
Whose poisoning juices thread my veins, and blend
With the fresh life within.
KESIPISCENTIA. 295
That in my blood this virus I must keep
To-morrow, next week, next month, all my years,
Until my day of death — for this I weep
With ignominious tears.
Third Voice.
Nay, hope is thine ! Who chants this grim complaint
Has steadfast heart, free mind, and insight keen ;
Such man may purge away the leprous taint
While yet he cries " Unclean !"
Daily thy tissues die — are born afresh
Daily, not moving thee to joy or dole ;
Yet all the slow mutations of thy flesh
Gently transmute thy soul.
Go, live in hope and labour, fearing nought ;
Starve the foul germs of hate, and lust, and greed ;
Force day by day thy brain to patient thought,
Thy hand to earnest deed.
296 RESIPISCENTIA.
Long were the darkling months before thy birth.
Long years regenerate a frame defiled :
It may be thou shalt enter heaven on earth
Clean as a pure-born child.
297 )
THE RECLUSE.
" Hcii ! Quanio mititis est cum reliqids versan, cjtiam ini
tneminisse /"
Having known Love, all its unmeasured heights,
All its unfathomed depths, I go my way,
Li full content that these supreme delights
Come not, like meaner pleasures, day by day.
Such lesser joys I yielded with few tears,
Reserving nought, paying Love's perfect price :
Shall I bewail my thirty desert years,
I, who have lived three days in Paradise ?
Nay, smile not, friend ! I know not which is best,
Plucked rosebud, or remembered asphodel,
A mortal wife, or an Olympian guest :
Well hast thou chosen ; but I, too, chose well.
( 29S )
LOVE'S MIRROR.
I LIVE with love encompassed round,
And glowing light that is not mine,
And yet am sad ; for, truth to tell.
It is not I you love so well ;
Some fair Immortal, robed and crowned.
You hold within your heart's dear shrine.
Cast out the Goddess ! let me in ;
Faulty I am, yet all your own,
But this bright phantom you enthrone
Is such as mortal may not win.
And yet this beauty that you see
Is like to mine, though nobler far ;
Your radiant guest resembles me
E'en as the sun is like a star.
Then keep her in your heart of hearts.
And let me look upon her face,
And learn of that transcendent grace.
Till all my meaner self departs,
LOVE'S MIRROR. 299
And, while I love you more and more,
My spirit, gazing on the light.
Becomes, in loveliness and might.
The glorious Vision you adore.
( joo )
FRIENDSHIP.
The human soul that cricth at thy gates,
Of man or woman, alien or akin,
'Tis thine own Self that for admission waits —
Rise, let it in.
Eid not thy guest but sojourn and depart ;
Keep him, if so it may be, till the end,
If thou have strength and purity of heart
To be his friend.
Not only, at bright morn, to wake his mind
A\^ith noble thoughts, and send him forth with
song,
Nor only, when night falls, his wounds to bind ;
But all day long
To helj) with love, with labour, and with lore,
To triumph when, by others' aid, he wins,
To carry all his sorrows, and yet more —
To bear his sins ;
FRIENDSHIP. 301
To keep a second conscience in thine own,
Which suffers wound on wound, yet strongly Uves,
Which takes no bribe of tender look or tone,
And yet forgives.
But, should some mortal vileness blast with death
Thy love for comrade, leader, kinsman, wife —
Seek no elixir to restore false breath,
And loathsome life.
Thy love is slain — thou canst not make it whole
With all thy store of wine, and oil, and bread :
Some passions are but flesh — thine had a soul,
And that is dead.
( 3C2 )
CHRIST, THE NAZARENE.
The copyist group was gathered round
A time-worn fresco, world-renowned.
Whose central glory once had been
The face of Christ, the Nazarene.
And every copyist of the crowd
With his own soul that face endowed,
•Centle, severe, majestic, mean ;
But which was Christ, the Nazarene?
Then one who watched them made complaint,
And marvelled, saying, " \\'herefore paint
Till ye be sure your eyes have seen
The face of Christ, the Nazarene ?"
SONG.
Think not I roam afield
With heart untrue ;
The gifts my rambles yield
Are all for you.
The bird must leave her nest
And fledglings five,
The honey-bee must rest
Far from her hive.
New regions I explore
While day is bright ;
My heart, with richer store,
Goes home at night.
( 304
TIME AND LOVE.
Time hobbles, but Love flies ;
One moment, say the wise,
They pass together :
Not Cupid's curls of gold
But Time's grey forelock hold,
A trusty tether.
For Time, once safely caught,
Is servant to your thought
For ever after ;
But wanton Love will snip
The curl you hold, and trip
Away with laughter.
Yet if my hint you heed,
With all his craft and speed.
He ne'er shall flout you ;
Catch Cupid by the wing,
For then he cannot spring
To Heaven without you.
EVOLUTIONAL EROTICS
w
n
( .307 )
SCIENTIFIC WOOING.
I WAS a youth of studious mind,
Fair Science was my mistress kind,
And held me with attraction chemic ;
No germs of Love attacked my heart.
Secured as by Pasteurian art
Against that fatal epidemic.
For when mj' daily task was o'er
I dreamed of H^S04,
While stealing through my slumbers placid
Came Iodine, with violet fumes,
And Sulphur, with its yellow blooms.
And whiffs of Hydrochloric Acid,
My daily visions, thoughts, and schemes
With wildest hope illumed my dreams,
The daring dreams of trustful twenty :
I might accomplish my desire.
And set the river Thames on fire
If but Potassium were in plenty !
3o8 SCIENTIFIC WOOING.
Alas ! that yearnings so sublime
Should all be blasted in their prime
By hazel eyes and lips vermilion !
Ye gods ! restore the halcyon days
While yet I walked in Wisdom's ways,
And knew not Mary Maud Trevylyan !
Yet nay ! the sacrilegious prayer
Was not mine own, oh fairest fair !
Thee, dear one, will I ever cherish ;
Thy worshipped image shall remain
In the grey thought-cells of my brain
Until their form and function perish.
Away with books, away with cram
For Intermediate Exam. !
Away with every college dut)' !
Though once Agnostic to the core,
A virgin Saint I now adore.
And swear belief in Love and Beauty.
Yet when I meet her tranciuil gaze,
I dare not plead, I dare not praise.
Like other men with other lasses ;
She's never kind, she's never coy,
She treats me simply as a boy.
And asks mc how I like my classes !
SCIENTIFIC WOOING. 309
I covet not her golden dower —
Yet surely Love's attractive power
Directly as the mass must vary —
But ah ! inversely as the square
Of distance ! shall I ever dare
To cross the gulf, and gain my Mary ?
So chill she seems — and yet she might
Welcome with radiant heat and light
My courtship, if I once began it ;
For is not e'en the palest star
That gleams so coldly from afar
A sun to some revolving planet ?
My Mary ! be a solar sphere !
Envy no comet's mad career,
No arid, airless lunar crescent !
Oh for a spectroscope to show
That in thy gentle eyes doth glow
Love's vapour, pure and incandescent !
Bright fancy ! can I fail to please
If with similitudes like these
I lure the maid to sweet communion ?
My suit, with Optics well begun,
By Magnetism shall be won,
And closed at last in Chemic union !
310
SCIENTIFIC WOOING.
At this I'll aim, for this I'll toil,
And this I'll reach— I will, by Boyle,
By Avogadro, and by Davy !
When every science lends a trope
To feed my love, to fire my hope.
Her maiden pride must cry "■ Peccavi P'
I'll sing a deep Darwinian lay
Of little birds with plumage ga)-,
Who solved by courtship Life's enigma ;
I'll teach her how the wild-flowers love,
And why the trembling stamens move.
And how the anthers kiss the stigma.
Or Mathematically true
With rigorous Logic will I woo,
And not a word I'll say at random ;
Till urged by Syllogistic stress,
She falter forth a tearful " Yes,"
A sweet " Quod erat demonstra>idu/>i /"
( 311 )
THE NEW ORTHODOXY.
So, dear Fred, you're not content
Though I quote the books you lent,
And I've kept that spray you sent
Of the milk-white heather ;
For you fear I'm too " advanced "
To remember all that chanced
In the old days, when we danced,
Walked, and rode together.
Trust me, Fred, beneath the curls
Of the most '' advanced " of girls,
Many a foolish fancy whirls.
Bidding Fact defiance.
And the simplest village maid
Needs not to be much afraid
Of her sister, sage and staid.
Bachelor of Science.
312 J HE A'EW ORTHODOXY.
Ah 1 while yet our hope was new
(Juardians thought 'twould never do
That Sir Frederick's heir should woo
Little Amy Merton :
So the budding joy they snatched
From our hearts, so meetly matched-
You to Oxford they despatched,
Me they sent to Girton.
Were the vows all writ in dust ?
No — you're one-and-twenty — ^just —
And you write — " We will, we must
Now, at once, be married !"
Nay, you plan the wedding trip !
Softly, sir ! there's many a slip
Ere the goblet to the lip
Finally is carried.
Oh, the wicked tales I hear !
Not that you at Ruskin jeer.
Nor that at Carlyle you sneer,
With his growls dyspeptic :
But that, having read in vain
Huxley, Tyndall, Clifford, Bain,
All the scientific train —
You're a hardened sceptic !
THE NEW ORTHODOXY. 313
Things with fin, and claw, and hoof
Join to give us perfect proof
That our being's warp and woof
We from near and far win ;
Yet your flippant doubts you vaunt,
And — to please a maiden aunt—
You've been heard to say you can't
Pin your faith to Darwin !
Then you jest, because Laplace
Said this Earth was nought but gas
Till the vast rotating mass
Denser grew and denser :
Something worse they whisper too,
But I'm sure it canU be true —
For they tell me, Fred, that you
Scoff at Herbert Spencer !
Write — or telegraph — or call !
Come yourself and tell me all :
No fond hope shall me enthrall,
No regret shall sway me :
Yet — until the worst is said.
Till I know your faith is dead,
I remain, dear doubting Fred,
Your believing
Amy.
( 314 )
NATURAL SELECTION.
I HAD found out a gift for my fair,
I had found where the cave-men were laid
Skull, femur, and pelvis were there.
And spears, that of silex they made.
But he ne'er could be true, she averred,
Who would dig up an ancestor's grave —
And I loved her the more when I heard
Such filial regard for the Cave.
My shelves, they are furnished with stones
All sorted and labelled with care,
And a splendid collection of bones,
Each one of them ancient and rare ;
One would think she might like to retire
To my study— she calls it a " hole !"
Not a fossil I heard her admire.
But I begged it, or borrowed, or stole.
NATCKAL SELECTION. 3^5
But there comes an idealess lad,
With a strut, and a stare, and a smirk ;
And I watch, scientific though sad,
The Law of Selection at work.
Of Science he hasn't a trace,
He seeks not the How and the Why,
But he sings with an amateur's grace.
And he dances much better than I.
And we know the more dandified males
By dance and by song win their wives-
'Tis a law that with Aves prevails,
ifVnd even in Homo survives.
Shall I rage as they whirl in the valse ?
Shall I sneer as they carol and coo ?
Ah no ! for since Chloe is false,
I'm certain that Darwin is true !
( 3i6 )
SOLOMON REDIVIVUS, i886.
W^HAT am I ? Ah, you know it,
I am the modern Sage,
Seer, savant, merchant, poet —
I am, in brief, the Age.
Look not upon my glory
Of gold and sandal-wood,
But sit and hear a story
From 1 )arwin and from Buddh.
Count not my Indian treasures,
All wrought in curious shapes.
My labours and my pleasures.
My peacocks and my apes ;
For when you ask me riddles,
And when I answer each,
Until my fifes and fiddles
Burst in and drown our speech,
SOLOMON REDIVIVUS. 3^7
Oh then your soul astonished
Must surely faint and fail,
Unless, by me admonished,
You hear our wondrous tale.
We were a soft Amoeba
In ages past and gone,
Ere you were Queen of Sheba,
And I Kinsi Solomon.
Unorganed, undivided,
We lived in happy sloth.
And all that you did I did.
One dinner nourished both
Till you incurred the odium
Of fission and divorce —
A severed pseudopodium
You strayed your lonely course.
When next we met together
Our cycles to fulfil,
Each was a bag of leather.
With stomach and with gill.
3i8 SOLOMOAf KEDIVIVUS.
But our Ascidian morals
Recalled that old mischance,
And we avoided cjuarrcls
By separate maintenance.
Long ages passed — our wishes
Were fetterless and free,
For we were jolly fishes,
A-swimminir in the sea.
We roamed by groves of coral,
We watched the youngsters play-
The memory and the moral
Had vanished quite away.
Next, each became a reptile.
With fangs to sting and slay ;
No wiser ever crept, I'll
Assert, deny who may.
But now, disdaining trammels
Of scale and limbless coil,
Through every grade of mammals
We passed with uj)ward toil.
SOLOMON R ED I VI V US. 319
Till, anthropoid and wary
Appeared the parent ape,
And soon we grew less hairy,
And soon began to drape.
So, from that soft Amoeba,
In ages past and gone,
You've grown the Queen of Sheba,
And I King Solomon.
SONNETS.
( 323 )
HELOISE.
Bride.
Come in my dreams, beloved ! though thou seem
Less kind, less noble, than by truthful day ;
Even in sleep my heart has strength to say —
" His love is changeless — this is but a dream :"
Yet rather come at sunrise, with the beam
Of thought renewed ; and still, when eve is grey.
Inspire me, at I tread my lonely way,
With thine own dauntless will and hope supreme.
Ah, let me die, ere meaner moods have power
To dim these glories that within me shine !
(]ive me black night or this unclouded sun,
Swift death or life immortal, in that hour
When all my soul is filled and fired with thine,
When thou and I are equal, being one.
324 HELOISE.
II.
Nun.
This is the doom I must henceforth fulfil :
To hide my heart through days, and months, and years ;
To look in anxious eyes, and lull their fears ;
To lose all hope, and strive with joyless will ;
To sing and pray, scarce knowing good from ill ;
To hear stale converse, as an idiot hears ;
To tread the cloistered courts with burning tears,
Forced backward to their fount, yet rising still.
Nay, there is comfort ! E'en the sick may smile,
Knowing for pain a swift and gentle cure ;
I can be patient, and can wait awhile.
Nor curse the heedless heavens with moaning breath :
Though for a night my weeping may endure,
Joy comes with morn- that joy whose name is Death.
HELOISE. 325
III.
Abbess.
Sweet is life's crown of quiet ; sweet is age,
With tranquil days, unmarred by joy or dole,
Void of desire, save that with just control
I may administer Christ's heritage :
Long since he heard my vow, the heartless gage
Not spurning ; took my tear-stained, love-writ scroll,
And words of strength and healing for the soul
Wrote with his own heart's blood across the page.
Passion is all forgotten, pain is fled :
Yet oft, 'mid idle phantoms of the mind.
Returns my earlier Self, with scornful eyes.
Saying — " Thou deemest age hath made thee wise.
And knowest not that thou art deaf, and blind.
And palsied. Live in peace ; for I am dead."
( 326 )
HERCULES.
This fruitage from the far Hesperides
I bring to great Eurystheus, feared and hated,
\\'hom I, his slave, nor hate nor fear ; my fated,
My full reward, he has no power to seize,
Nor is it bought with golden gauds like these ;
I seek supreme delights, untold, undated ;
Of joys wherewith these kings of men are sated
Right little recks the Jove-born Hercules.
I live content to bear my destined burden,
To toil unthanked, unhonoured, void of guerdon,
To work a tyrant's will through lonely years ;
That, neither shunning pain nor scorning pleasure.
My strenuous soul may win Olympian leisure,
And dwell in peace among the Gods, my peers.
( 327 )
PROMETHEUS AND PANDORA.
These pangs I bear through lingering centuries
For slavish Man, in pity and in scorn ;
Glad, while by birds of Jove my breast is torn
Till sunset, that I spurned his luring prize :
Yet when she came, that queen with jacinth eyes
August yet changeful, like the sea at morn,
I could have triumphed that mine Earth had borne
A creature fashioned in such glorious wise.
Nay ! but my will were firm, though Heaven should give
A Goddess pure. One only gift I seek.
Freedom for Man ; or, this renounced, I live
Self-sentenced to mine own immortal hate :
Better the rock, the chain, the eagle's beak,
And this fulfilment of my chosen fate.
( 328 )
THE NEBULAR THEORY.
This is the genesis of Heaven and Earth.
In the beginning was a formless mist
Of atoms isolate, void of life ; none wist
Aught of its neighbour atom, nor any mirth.
Nor woe, save its own vibrant pang of dearth ;
Until a cosmic motion breathed and hissed
And blazed through the black silence ; atoms kissed.
Clinging and clustering, with fierce throbs of birth.
And raptures of keen torment, such as stings
Demons who wed in Tophet ; the night swarmed
With ringed fiery clouds, in glowing gyres
Rotating : aons passed : the encircling rings
Split into satellites ; the central fires
Froze into suns ; and thus the world was formed.
( 329 )
THE PESSIMIST'S VISION.
I DREAMED, and saw a modern Hell, more dread
Than Dante's pageant ; not with gloom and glare.
But all new forms of madness and despair
Filled it with complex tortures, some Earth-bred,
Some born in Hell : eternally full-fed
Ghosts of all foul disease-germs thronged the air :
And as with trembling feet I entered there,
A Demon barred the way, and mocking said —
" Through our dim vales and gulfs thou need'st not rove ;
From thine own Earth and from its happiest lot
Thy lust for pain may draw full nourishment,
With poignant spice of passion ; knowest thou not
, Fiends wed for hate as mortals wed for love,
Yet find not much more anguish ? Be content."
33'^ )
THE GIFT.
From Paradise there came, one Maytide morn,
An Almoner of love, with gifts divine :
To some he brought rich draughts of magic wine ;
To some, who laboured in their fields forlorn,
Sweet showers and sunbeams for the springing corn ;
Then me he called, with gracious word and sign,
But when I looked what bounty should be mine,
One fire-bright drop he gave me, as in scorn.
" Angel ! to these thou givest present mirth,
To those, the promise of a golden crop
In Autumn ; was my hope so little worth ?"
Smiling, the Angel answered — " Share and prove
Their joy, if so thou wilt — in that one drop
Thou hast the life and ciuintessence of Love."
( 331 )
ANDREW MARVELL'S "DEFINITION
OF LOVE."
" My love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis for object strange and high ;
It was begotten of Despair
Upon Impossibility."
Love sought me — not the blind god infantine,
But Love with lucent eyes and pensive brow ;
And as I mused with what adoring vow
I should accost that visitant divine,
He said, " Think but a thought and I am thine.
Exalting thee to heavenly heights, which thou
Without me canst not reach ; yet ponder now,
Nor rashly to my power thy life resign ;
For never will I grant thy full desire.
But will transpierce thy heart with many a wound,
And in the end will leave thee sorrowing."
Then said I — " Though thy voice be sternly tuned,
Though still thou feed, and ne'er assuage, my fire.
Yet I rejoice, and take thee for my King."
( 332 )
POET AND BOTANIST.
Fair are the bells of this bright-flowering weed ;
Nectar and pollen treasuries, where grope
Innocent thieves • the Poet lets them ope
And bloom, and wither, leaving fruit and seed
To ripen ; but the Botanist will speed
To win the secret of the blossom's hope,
And with his cruel knife and microscope
Reveal the embryo life, too early freed.
Yet the mild Poet can be ruthless too,
Crushing the tender leaves to work a spell
Of love or fame ; the record of the bud
He will not seek, but only bids it tell
His thoughts, and render up its deepest hue
To tinge his verse as with his own heart's l)lood.
( 333 )
SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.
We went a-begging for a nobler creed,
We craved the living bread and wine of thought,
That Eucharist which is not sold or bought,
But freely given ; yet, did any heed,
'Twas but to offer pence, or bid us feed
From empty sacramental vessels, wrought
Of gold or brass ; we spent our prayers for nought,
Faint and athirst with spiritual need.
Then some brought grapes, and some brought corn and
yeast.
Plenteous and good ; yet still we murmured, " Give !
This is scant fare when thirst and hunger cry :
Teach us to change our garner to a feast,
Preparing food by which the mind may live,
Perennial loaves, and flagons never dry."
( 334 )
THE DOUBLE RAINBOW.
I SAW the passions and desires of Man
Blent in a thousand-coloured arc of light,
A double rainbow ; but so jewel-bright
The scarf of Iris had been pale and wan
Beside it : not the torrent-bows that span
A river-fall at noon ; nor birds whose flight
Gleams ruby and gold ; nor columned chrysolite
In caves enchanted ; nought, since light began,
Could match its glories : l)Ut the inner arch
With Joy and Anguish too intensely burned
For eyes that love the cloudy robes of March
And April, and calm Autumn's golden dress :
Half-blinded, to the outer bow they turned,
Soft with remembered Grief and Happiness.
535
RECOMPENSE.
The wine-flushed monarch slept — but in his ear
An angel breathed — " Repent ; or choose the flame
Quenchless." In dread he woke, but not in shame,
Deep musing — " Sin I love, yet Hell I fear."
Wherefore he left his feasts, and minions dear.
And justly ruled, and died a saint in name.
But when his hasting spirit heavenward came
A stern Voice cried — " Oh Soul ! what dost thou here?"
" Love I forswore, and wine, and kept my vow
'Vo live a just and joyless life, and now
I crave reward." The Voice came like a knell —
" Fool ! dost thou hope to find again thy mirth.
And those foul joys thou didst renounce on earth ?
Yea, enter in ! My Heaven shall be thy Hell !"
TRANSLATIONS.
( 339 )
IDEALS.
From (he German of Schiller.
Ah faithless ! canst thou thus desert me,
With all fair thoughts and fancies gay,
With all thy joys, with all thy sorrows
Wilt thou unpitying haste away ?
Ah youthful prime of golden joyance,
Can nought delay thee, fleeting fast ?
In vain ! The river seeks the ocean,
Eternity engulphs the Past.
Quenched are the suns whose gladsome lustre
Athwart the road of youth was cast,
And banished all the fair Ideals
That fired the rapt enthusiast ;
Dead is the faith in sweet illusions,
Beings that in my dream had birth.
And reft away their god-like beauty
By rude realities of Earth.
340 IDEALS.
As once, with ardent supplication,
Pygmalion clasped the sculptured form,
Until the pale cold cheeks of marble
Flushed with emotion, bright and warm ;
So I, aflame with youthful passion,
Dead Nature to my bosom pressed,
Till she to breathe, to glow, to tremble.
Began upon my poet-breast ;
Till, kindling to my fiery impulse,
At last the Dumb her silence broke.
With answering love returned my kisses.
And understood my heart that spoke :
The tree, the flower, for me had voices.
For me the silver fount could sing ;
I felt my life's re-echoing music
Give soul to every senseless thing.
A universe of mighty yearning
Throbbed in my bosom's narrow bound,
To issue forth, to live incarnate.
In deed and word, in form and sound :
How great this world, how nobly fashioned,
While yet the bud contained it all !
How few, alas I the opened blossoms.
And even these, how weak and small !
IDEALS. 341
Oh how, on wings of dauntless courage,
All blissful in his dream of truth.
Nor yet by any care embridled.
Forth on Life's journey sprang the youth !
His soaring aspirations bore him
Even to Ether's palest star ;
For Hope, with strong untiring pinions.
Was nought too high and nought too far.
How lightly was he carried onward !
What power could stay his glad advance ?
How swift before Life's rolling chariot
His airy escort seemed to dance !
For there was Love, with sweetest promise.
And there, with star-set crown, was Fame,
And Fortune with her golden chaplet,
And Truth all robed in sunlight came.
But ah ! those bright companions vanished
Ere half the destined course was run.
They turned away their faithless footsteps,
Till all had left me, one by one.
Away fled Fortune, nimbly speeding,
The thirst to Know was unallayed.
And meeting round Truth's sunbright image.
The storms of Doubt thick darkness made.
342 IDEALS.
I saw Fame's crown, of old so sacred,
Profaned upon a vulgar head ;
Too soon, alas, the short spring over.
The beauteous time of Love had fled ;
And every hour the silence deepened,
And lonelier grew the rugged way.
Till even Hope could scarcely lighten
Its shadows by one pallid ray.
But which of all that frolic escort
Cheered with her constant love my road-
Stays with me still, consoles, and follows —
Yes, even to the dark abode ?
Thou, gentle tender hand of Friendshij),
Who all my sorest wounds hast bound,
With loving aid Life's burdens bearing,
Thou, whom I early sought and found,
And thou, who journeyest with her gladly,
Like her canst quell the spirit's storms ;
Diligent ^Vork, who wearies never,
Nor ruins, slowly though she forms ;
Who in Eternity's vast fabric
But grain of sand on sand-grain rears,
Yet from the debt-roll of the ages
Can strike out minutes, days, and years.
{ 343 )
FRAGMENTS FROM FAUST.
Mephistopheles on Logic. (Part I.)
Meph. Be careful of your time, so swiftly flies it,
But Order teaches how to utilise it.
And first, by my advice, dear friend,
Coi/egium logicuin attend.
For there your mind is drilled and graced,
In Spanish boots 'tis tightly laced,
That now, with warier step, it may
Go plodding on in Thought's highway.
And not, mayhap, with zigzag light.
Go will-o'-the-wisping left and right.
And there they'll teach you, many a day,
That what you once did free and gay.
At one stroke, easy as eating and drinking,
Needs One ! Two ! Three ! — the right way of thinking.
In the manufactory of Thought,
Like a weaver's masterpiece 'tis wrought,
344 FRAGMENTS FROM FAUST,
Where one jerk moves a thousand threads,
The shuttles go shooting over and under,
The threads flow unseen, entwined and asunder,
One stroke a thousand filaments weds.
Then the Philosopher, in comes he,
And clearly proves, so must it be ;
The First was so, the Second so,
Therefore the Third and Fourth were so ;
And had the First and Second not been,
The Third and Fourth you ne'er had seen.
The students on all sides call him clever.
But not a student becomes a weaver.
To know and describe a living whole
One first of all drives out the soul.
Handles the parts and loses none.
Save, alas ! the soul that made them one.
E?icheiresin natunc, Chemistry calls it,
Mocks itself, and knows not what befalls it.
Student. I don't seem quite to comprehend.
Meph. 'Twill all go better soon, my friend.
When you can qualify and quantify.
And properly can classify.
Student. I feel so stupid after all you've said,
As though a mill-wheel went round in my head.
FRAGMENTS FROM FAUST, 345
II.
The Baccalaureus. (Fart II.)
I TELL you this is Youth's supreme vocation !
Before me was no World — 'tis my creation :
'Twas I who raised the Sun from out the sea ;
The Moon began her changeful course with me ;
Day decked herself in dazzling robes to meet me ;
Earth budded forth with leaves and flowers to greet me ;
I gave the signal on that primal night
When all the host of heaven burst forth in light.
Who but myself saves man from the dominion
Of dogmas cramping, crushing, Philistinian ?
So, free and gay, my spirit's voice I heed.
And follow where the inner light may lead,
Still hasting onward with a gladsome mind,
The Bright before me, and the Dark behind.
( 346 )
THE EYE.
From the German of Emil Riilershaiis.
The human soul — a world in little ;
The world — a greater human soul ;
The eye of man — a radiant mirror,
That clear and true reflects the whole.
And, as in every eye thou meetest
The mirrored image is thine own,
Each mortal sees his soul reflected.
In all the world himself alone !
( 347 )
ON THE WATER.
From the Gentian of Emviauitel Geibel.
Now hill and dale begin to bloom anew,
The tree-tops bud, and winds pass whispering through >
Faint grow the bugle-notes, with sunset's red —
I would be merry, but my heart is dead.
My comrades ply their oars, and scorn delay,
The furrowed wave gleams back the starlight ray ;
To the guitar the dancing boat is sped —
Fain were I merry, but my heart is dead.
The moon is up, and clearer shine the skies,
From every bosom songs of mirth arise ;
In all our goblets wine glows darkly red —
Fain were I merry, but my heart is dead.
And could my Love rise up from out the grave,
And grant all dear delights that once she gave.
And say all tender words that once she said —
In vain ! The Past is past, the Dead are dead.
( 348
DANTE AND NINO.
From the Italian of Dante ('■^J'nrgatorio,'''' Canto VIII., v. 4J-S4).
Again Sordello spoke — " Into this dell,
Among the mighty Dead, now let us go ;
The sight of thee will please the spirits well.
In but three steps, meseems, I was below,
And gazing on me only, one came nigh,
Attent, as though my face he fain would know.
It was the time when eve englooms the sky,
Yet not so dusk but that a closer view
Made clear the darkling path from eye to eye.
Noble Judge Nino, how I gloried when
I saw thou wast not with the damned crew !
All words of courteous greeting spake we ; then
He asked — " How long since camest thou to us
Beneath this mount, o'er seas beyond our ken ?"
*' I came by those dread regions dolorous
This morning, with my first life undecayed.
In hope to gain the second, journeying thus."
And when they heard this answer that I made,
He and Sordello shrank back, as in fear,
DANTE AND NINO. 349
Like folk by sudden wonder all dismayed.
This turned toward Virgil — that, to one who near
Was sitting, cried — " Up, Conrad, from thy place ;
What God in mercy wills, come and see and hear !"
Then to me turning — " By that special grace
Granted to thee by Him, who from our sense
Conceals his primal Why, which none may trace —
When thou shalt pass beyond the seas, far hence,
Say to my little Joan, she must implore
For me, where heed is given to innocence.
Her mother loves me, so I think, no more,
Since she has cast aside the fillet white,
Which, heart-sick, she shall wish that still she wore.
From her thou mayest understand aright
How long will burn the fire of woman's love
Not kindled fresh by daily touch and sight.
Less nobly will her funeral pageant move
Beneath the Milan warrior's viper-shield
Than were Gallura's cock emblazed above."
Such words he uttered, seeming stamped and sealed
With that just ardour, whose attempered heat
His heart still cherished, and his face revealed.
FRAGMENTS.
( 353 )
WINTER AND SPRING.
To HER Grandfather on his Birthday.
Oh sweet is light that dawns from gloom,
And hope that springs from grief ;
Soon bud the violets on the tomb
Of Winter's despot chief.
With many a death-presaging cry,
Loud wails the hoary king ;
With clouds he fortifies the sky
Against the warrior Spring.
But though his helmet's plume is bright
With rain instead of dew,
With sunbeam sword the youthful knight
Shall cleave his passage through.
But long ere he, with victor shout,
The crown of earth shall win ;
While grim old Winter rules without,
Our Spring sits throned within.
354 WINTER AND SPRING.
In vain the winds, with stormy strife,
His first pale buds destroy,
If, nourished by our dearest life,
Still blossom Love and Joy.
For though the days are darkly sad,
And though the nights are drear,
Yet loving hearts may still be glad
Through all the changing year.
And even \\'inter on the land
A few fair gifts bestows,
Like treasures that a tyrant's hand
Amid his courtiers throws.
In gardens that deserted lie
Some flowers may linger yet.
And often, in a stormy sky,
A few faint stars are set.
And so before the blossoms bright
Have decked the earth again,
Before the jewelled arch of light
Shines through the summer rain,
WINTER AND SPRING. 355
Some days will come that lift awhile
Their veils of gloom and mist,
And, with a calm, rejoicing smile,
By pensive sunlight kissed.
This day is fair, though stern and cold
Its pallid brow may be ;
Where others only frowns behold
There yet are smiles for me.
Though all the dreary land is shorn
Of beauty, bloom, and grace.
How can I choose but love the morn
That first beheld thy face ?
( 356 )
THE PRIEST'S WARNING.*
Dost long for sunrise ? — quench the vain desire,
And bar thy window 'gainst the eastern fire.
Thy fathers dwelt content in sacred night ;
Walking by faith, they scorned unholy sight :
Then, reckless gazer, close in shame thine eyes,
And hide thy head, while morn illumes the skies :
Wrapped in Egyptian gloom the truth receive,
Lest haply thou shouldst see — and disbelieve.
The shapes of night, with outlines faint and blurred ;
The sounds of night, in soft confusion heard ;
The scents of night, that come from flowers unknown-
Were they not sweet, and were they not thine own ?
And he who could not rest might see the stars
And moonlight beaming through his prison bars ;
Yet blest is he who sleeps, for morning takes
These tender glories from the eye that wakes :
Yes, he who sleeps is blest ; in holy dreams,
* Originally appeared in The Agttostic, February, 1885.
THE PRIEST'S WARNING. 357
Through day and night he sees the same fair beams.
Come, dream again ; or, if thy lawless mind
Have seen the sun, and can no more be blind,
For eyes profane as thine the daylight keep,
Nor wake the sainted souls who yet can sleep.
Yon murderer, cheered with sacramental wine,
Has higher hopes and holier thoughts than thine.
'Tis merciful to hang him, for perhaps
His convalescent conscience might relapse :
Shall new-purged eyes behold that loathsome cot.
That hideous home, where love and health are not ?
Shall hands new-cleansed caress that cowering wife ?
(Poor wretch, who knows not yet the loftier life !
Blighted and scarred, grown dull of heart and eye,
Mother of starveling children, born to die.)
What if the fiend, with seven more vile, returned,
And banished all the truth, so quickly learned ?
Yet has he passed the mystic second birth,
Prepared for heaven, though quite unfit for earth.
Straight from the gallows shall his spirit fly
To join the white-robed company on high.
Despatched in mercy to the heavenly shore,
To kick his wife, to kill his friends, no more.
But thou, though pure thy deeds, though kind thy heart.
In God's free grace canst have nor lot nor part ;
Thou, by unhallowed thirst for truth consumed,
With thieves, and cheats, and liars shalt be doomed :
3S8 THE PRIEST'S WARNING.
Thy foes thou pardonest ; but thy heavenly Sire
Tortures his own with everlasting fire.
Just Ruler ! when we strive the truth to win
A false conclusion is a damning sin :
If unto thee a crooked pathway leans,
That glorious end may sanctify the means ;
But, if the straightest path should from thee tend,
The means can never sanctify the end.
Presumptuous man ! be humbled in the dust !
We are the Church of (lOd, and he is just.
Cling to the Cross, renounce thy fruitless search ;
Better be deaf and blind than leave the Church.
Pluck out thine eyes, lest they should see too clear
And lest thine ears mislead thee, cease to hear.
Better, a sightless cripple, save thy soul.
Than enter fires of hell, though sound and whole.
Prove sacred things by faith, if proof they need ;
But prove not those which war against our creed :
Or, if thou follow Reason's polar star.
Turn back in time, nor follow it too far.
From many a distant, night-encircled tomb
Comes forth an ancient voice, a sound of doom.
The thorn-crowned ages cry : " Return, return,
In haunts of death the way of life to learn.
Ah, wherefore pine and struggle to be free ?
For what has liberty to do with thee ?
Thy fathers wore their fetters to the grave ;
THE PRIEST'S WARNING. 359
Then why shouldst thou disdain to be a slave ?
Round every limb they wreathed the golden chain,
And what ihou deemest loss they counted gain.
Wilt thou be free ? then Christ is not thy Lord :
Wilt thou be true ? let Hell be thy reward !"
( 36o )
NIGHT AND MORNING.
Night.
I LIFT to Heaven my longing eyes,
Knowing that yonder tranquil moon
Is bright for you in Spanish skies ;
And has she power your soul to tune,
In subtlest harmony divine,
With all the passionate thoughts of mine ?
No, rather let her give you rest.
To sleep in peace, with joy to wake ;
Yet if a dream the slumber break,
Dream of my youthful soul and breast.
Hungered, alone, far off, and sad ;
But dream them near, and dream them glad.
Morning.
The morning radiance floods my room,
Its tender glow my brow has kissed,
NIGHT AND MORNING. 361
And scattered all the night-born gloom :
Yon floating, thin, translucent mist,
Pierced through and through with living gold,
Makes lovelier what it half enshrouds :
And you in distant skies behold
The self-same sun, but other clouds.
Trim English lowlands bloom for me ;
For you Alhambra's courts are bright ;
For both o'er earth, and sky, and sea.
Through thought and passion, mind and heart,
Still streams the same all glorious light ;
Earth's barriers keep us far apart,
But we are one at heaven's height.
PRIZE WINNERS OF THE
CONSTANCE NADEN ANNUAL GOLD MEDAL,
Instituted by Dr. Lewins.
1890.— F. D. Chattaway, B.Sc, Trinity College, Cambridge,
Poem : " Persephone : A Myth Re-set."
1 89 1. — In this year no essay was deemed worthy the medal.
1892.— Miss Jessie Charles, B.Sc, Essay: "Evolution in
Relation to Ethics."
1893.— Miss Jane E. Pemberton, Essay : " The Comparison
of Dante's ' Divina Commedia,' Milton's ' Paradise Lost,' and
Klopstock's ' Messias.'"
printed bv watts & co.,
17, Johnson's court, fleet street,
london, e.c.
SOME PERSONAL AND PRESS OPINIONS
ON THE
WORKS OF CONSTANCE NADEN.
PERSONAL OPINIONS.
The Misses Emily and Edith Hughes have received many
gratifying letters in acknowledgment of presentation copies
of Selections from the Philosophical and Poetical Works of
Constance Nadcn (fcap. 8vo, pp. i.-xxxii., 1-190; cloth,
gilt, with portrait of Miss Naden ; Bickers ; 3s. 6d.), among
which the following are noteworthy : —
General Sir Henry F. Ponsonby, G.C.B., writes from
Windsor Castle : " I am commanded by the Queen to
thank you for the copy of ' Selections from the Writings of
Constance Naden ' which you have had the kindness to
present to Her Majesty."
Count Seckendorff writes from Windsor Castle :
" Count Seckendorff presents his compliments to the Misses
Hughes, and begs leave to say that he has been commanded
by Her Majesty the Empress Frederick to thank them for
the copy of a book, ' Selections from the Philosophical and
Poetical Works of Constance Naden,' which Her Majesty
has been graciously pleased to accept."
Mrs. Joseph Chamberlain writes from Highbury : " I
have received the book of ' Selections from the Writings of
Constance Naden ' with much pleasure, and desire to thank
you most warmly for it. I shall read it with much interest,
for I remember my pleasant meeting with Miss Naden, and
I shall be glad to know more of what she was."
Mr. Herbert Spencer writes from 64, Avenue Road,
Regent's Park, London, N.W. : " I am obliged to you for
the copy received this morning of your 'Selections from
Miss Naden's Works.' They are well worth preserving, and
2 THE WORKS OF CONSTANCE NADEN :
in their present form will, I should think, meet with con-
siderable acceptance."
Dr. Samuel Smiles, author of "Self-Help," "Lives of
the Engineers," etc., writes from 8, Pembroke Gardens,
Kensington, to Dr. Lewins : " I am exceedingly obliged to
you for the ' Selections from the Works of Miss Constance
C. W. Naden,' sent to me yesterday by Messrs. Bickers &
Son, publishers. The ' Selections ' are full of profound
truth, and the appended poems are exceedingly interesting.
The volume will afford me tnuch pleasure and profit during
the approaching winter season."
Professor Lapworth, LL.D., F.R.S., writes from the
Mason College, Birmingham : " Please allow me to thank
you most gratefully and sincerely for the present of your
most interesting and beautiful ' Selections from the Works
of Constance C. W. Naden.' It is a pleasure to look at
and an education to read. I have enjoyed myself this
afternoon going through it, and reading again some of our
dear friend's words, so thoughtful, so far-seeing, so true, and
so beautifully expressed. I am sure that the book will be
deeply valued by those who knew and loved Miss Naden,
and will do good to those who did not. I think that you
have selected and arranged your material and your subjects
very nicely indeed, so that the excerpts almost read like a
continuous story or argument."
Professor Tilden, D.Sc, F.R.S., writes from the Mason
(College, Birmingham : " I cannot allow a single day to pass
without returning my most grateful thanks for your charming
little volume. I am not quite sure that I am prepared to
argue that Constance Naden's forte was not poetry, but
philosophy. Had she lived, I think we should have seen
surprising developments in both directions. As it is, we
who knew her feel nothing but thankfulness for what she
has left us. I hope your volume will have the large circu-
lation it deserves."
Dr. T. F. Chavasse writes from Edgbaston : " It is very
kind of you to send me the very artistic little volume con-
taining selections from the late Miss Naden's books. It will
be difficult to say whether I value more the kindly feelings
which prompted the authors to present me with their book,
or the intrinsic value of the spirit of the book itself. But I
SOME PERSONAL AND PRESS OPINIONS. 3
nevertheless do thank you very much, and, at the same
time, congratulate you on the gratifying results of your
energy and research. I hope the book will have a large
sale."
Mr. Hughes has received many gratifying letters in
acknowledgment of presentation copies of Constance
Naden : A Memoir (fcap. 8vo, pp. i.-xxi., 1-9 1 ; cloth,
gilt, with portrait of Miss Naden, ; Bickers ; 2s. 6d.), among
which the following are noteworthy : —
General Sir Henry F. Ponsonby, G.C.B., writes from
Osborne : " I have had much pleasure in laying before the
Queen the copy of your work, ' Constance Naden : A
Memoir,' of which I had already heard an interesting
account. Her Majesty was graciously pleased to accept
the volume, and commands me to thank you for your
kindness in having presented her with this book."
Lord Reay writes : " I have had the privilege of receiv-
ing your Memoir of Miss Naden. I am very much obliged.
Though only having had the pleasure of seeing her for a
few hours, I mourn the premature death of this singularly
gifted lady as warmly as any of her friends."
The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P., writes: "I
thank you very much for the Memoir of Miss Naden.
Everything relating to her is to me matter of deep and
touching interest."
Mr. Sydney Eee, the present, and Mr. Leslie Stephen,
the late, editor of the " National Dictionary of Biography,"
report that the latter eminent writer and thinker is pre-
paring the monograph of Miss Naden for that monumental
work.
The Right Hon. J. Chamberlain, M.P., writes : " I
am much obliged to you for the copy of the Life of Miss
Naden, which I shall read with interest."
Sir Philip Magnus writes : " I am indeed much obliged
to you for sending me the Memoir of Constance Naden
In common with everyone else who knew her, I was deeply
shocked when I heard the sad news of her death, which so
abruptly terminated an acquaintance which I had hoped
would ripen into friendship."
4 THE WORKS OF CONSTANCE NADEN :
In acknowledging the receipt of a copy of the Memoir
sent to him by Mrs. Charles Daniell, Mr. Gladstone writes
as follows : " I read through the whole Memoir with undi-
minished interest. There can be no doubt that by the death of
Miss Naden the world has lost a person of gifts both extraordi-
nary and highly diversified. As yet I believe in her mainly
for her poetry ; but a mind highly scientific is shown by the
wonderfully clever verses on ' Solomon Redivivus.' I am
glad to be under the impression that we have not got the
last of her remains. I shall always regret my personal loss
in not having known her personally."
Finally, as a contrast to Mr. Gladstone and others above
quoted, it may be noted that Messrs. Macmillan, through
their managing partner or director, Mr. Craig, peremptorily
declined, in an interview with her literary executor, Dr.
Lewins, to have anything to do with the publications of Miss
Naden, even on their own terms.
The Rev. E. Coiiham Brewer, LL.D., author of " Dic-
tionary of Phrase and Fable," etc., writes : —
«« MIS.S CONSTANCE C. W. NADEN AS AN ORIGINAL
THINKER.
" One cannot hope often to have so attractive a theme as
Miss Naden to write about — so fair, so young, so fresh, so
talented, so full of brilliant promise ; but, alas I it must be
added, so frail and short-lived, cut off in the very bud of
womanhood. The end is sad, but the beautiful little star
has left a trail of light behind, and has been so happy as to
have a Dr. Lewins for her prcecordiwn et duke detus. Miss
Naden had the gift to see the hidden genius of her mentor,
and Dr. Lewins to discern the flower shut up in la jeutie filk
dans le boutoii de son age.
" It is not often that such a combination of talent as
poetry and philosophy is met with in the same person ; but
Miss Naden was a poet born, and made herself wise in
science and philosophy. Her penetration was quick and keen,
and she seems to have been about the only one able to grasp
the difficult subject of Hylo-Idealism. She saw at once that
objects, till they became subjects, cannot enter into the
SOME PERSONAL AND PRESS OPINIONS. 5
sphere of our consciousness, and therefore are to us vir-
tually as good as non-existent.
"Many have read about Hylo-Idealism, but have been
surely puzzled to reconcile it with their foregone conceptions ;
but, then, every new phase of progress has this stumbling
block as a rock of offence. Geology had a long uphill fight
with prejudice, so had astronomy, so indeed had machinery ;
but Miss Naden, from the very first, grasped the whole sub-
ject, and tried, not without notable success, to popularise
what, to her own mind, was completely self-evident.
"Others of her philosophical and scientific excursions
show the same intuitive penetration, and probably, had her
life been spared, her name would have been bracketed with
that of Mrs. Somerville ; as it is, H. Spencer says that Miss
Naden and George Eliot, the two female Warwickshire
poets and thinkers, are on a par, and he does not know
where to find a third.
" Miss Naden's poetry has the true ring of precious metal;
but, like Kirk White, Keats, and Shelley, her age was only a
little, little day. But I am not going to dwell here on this
subject, for another paper, by Nellie C. Hayman, entitled
' Miss Naden as a Poet,' will be found in this collection."
Nellie C. Hayman, nee Brewer, Vicarage, Edwinstowe,
Newark, Notts, writes : —
" MISS NADEN AS A POET.
"In a certain choice corner of a cosy room is a book-
shelf, where many favourite books are to be found. Among
some well-worn and well-marked volumes, the eye is
attracted by a little blue-covered book, evidently a special
favourite ; it falls open easily in the hand, and various
marks on the margin show that it has been ' read, marked,
learnt, and inwardly digested.' The very name conjures up
visions of spring blossoms, and, as the pages open, a breath
of spring seems to sweep across the quiet room.
" ' Songs and Sonnets of Springtime,' by Constance C.
W. Naden, is written on the cover. The poems are gems :
they range from grave to gay, now and then a deeper note
is struck ; the song falls into a plaintive, minor key, and the
sweet singer touches on the mysteries of life and death.
Here is a song of ' Twilight,' in which, in the palms of ' the
O THE WORKS OF CONSTANCE NADEN :
radiant colours in the West,' is seen 'the mystery of night,'
and the thoughts lead on to the deeper mysteries of the
human soul : —
'As height and depth alike transcend our vision,
The human soul, whence clearest histre beams,
lias yet its Hades and its fields Elysian,
Revealed alone in symbols and in dreams.'
"In the ' Pilgrim ' (page 39) is a fine attempt to depict
the genesis, by Dr. Levvins, of Hylo-Idcalism, or Auto-
Morphism (Selfism). In 'Six Years Old' the heart of a
child is laid bare. The precocious child, alone in the
garden, weaving her dainty fancies about the fairies, ' with
thorns for their knives and their forks,' and their ball-rooms
of ' white lily cups,' and that wonderful country of light, far
over the seas and the mountains, which she visits in her
dreams. The Sonnets speak of Nature in all her aspects,
from the first snowdrop, ' Fair sunny-hearted child of many
tears j' the —
' Lanes and woods array
With hawthorn that was wont to bloom in May
White petalled, crimson-anthered ;'
on through the ' barren splendours of July,' the glow of
autumn, when ' the leaves flame gold and scarlet,' the dim
and silent skies of November to December, when the
earth —
' Lies dreaming of her destined hour,
All white and still, most like a soul at rest.'
If you are in a gay mood, and want a hearty laugh, read
' The Lady Doctor,' that—
• Spinster gaunt and grey,
Whose aspect stern might well dismay
A bombardier stout-hearted !'
although there is a touch of pathos, too, in the hint of her
early life, when, in the bloom of girlhood, she wandered in
the dewy meadows with her young lover. She rejects love,
and chooses instead the charm of powder, pill, and lotion.
Nay, her very glance
' Might cast a spell
Transmuting sherry and Moselle
To chill and acrid potions.'
There is a fine touch of sarcasm in the poem called ' The
SOME PERSONAL AND PRESS OPINIONS. 7
Two Artists ' — one being the painter who despairs of ever
matching on his pallette the pure damask rose of his
mistress's cheek ; the other being the mistress herself, who
knows too well the secret of the pretty bloom contained in
a certain little bottle.
" The translations from the German are all very beautiful,
the sentiment and spirit of the originals being wonderfully
preserved. In these days of careless and slipshod transla-
tions it is a great treat to read some of the songs of the
great German poets in perfect and flowing English.
"That Miss Naden herself was a German scholar is evi-
dent in her poem, ' Das Ideal,' and in the short dedication,
' Meinem Verehhrten Freunde Herrn Dr. Lewins in Dank-
barkeit Gewidmet ' — we know she was a true friend.
" We close the dainty book, feeling that, for a short time,
we have been in touch with a noblewoman, a woman whose
influence would make one ' purer, better, stronger ' — one
' who, being dead, yet speaketh.'
" The book is laid aside, the hands are folded idly in the
lap, and, as the twilight gathers in that quiet corner, certain
words of Miss Naden's own linger and echo in the deepen-
ing gloom as one's thoughts dwell on her peaceful grave.
' Look in her face, and lose thy dread of dying ;
Weep not, that rest will come, that toil will cease ;
Is it not well, to lie as she is lying,
In utter silence, and in perfect peace ?' "
Miss Gingell, compiler of the "Aphorisms" of Mr.
Herbert Spencer, writes : " The thought that has dominated
my mind in reading Miss Naden's poems is that they are
the expression of a mind eminently scientific, both naturally
and by education, illustrating emphatically the truth that
Mr. Herbert Spencer so strongly insists on in his work on
' Education,' where, in combating the general idea that
science is not conducive to poetic thought, he says : ' It is
not true that the cultivation of science is necessarily
unfriendly to the exercise of imagination and the love of the
beautiful. On the contrary, science opens up realms of
poetry where, to the unscientific, all is a blank.' "
Lady Burton, nee Arundell, widow and executrix of
the late Sir Richard Burton, K.C.B., writes: "I have a
regretful and pleasing remembrance of a tall, soft, fair girl,
who, perhaps, would not have attracted much attention from a
8 THE WORKS OF CONSTANCE NADEN :
society of butterflies ; but the more tlie Thinker looked at
her, the more he felt drawn to know something about her.
She was born to great things, but her brain was too big for
her frail frame, and she died in Mayfair from illness con-
tracted in India (as one might say) little more than a child,
leaving the world a flower the less. She had made her
mark in poetry and in science ; and, if that bud had lived
to open, one cannot foresee what track of light she was
capable of leaving behind. She was not only a poet, but a
chemist, a psychologist, and — may I say, alas ! — a Free-
thinker. If she has left behind many admirers, she has
left one faithful friend, who will always keep her memory
green ; and no one is fitter to sympathise with and to
understand this pious work than I."
Professor F. Max Miiller writes from 7, Norham
Gardens, Oxford : " I am glad to hear of the appreciation of
Miss Naden's poetry. I liked the poems when they first came
out ; but I never trust my judgment as to English poetry.
I am no judge of English poetry, so far as the jingle of
rhyme and the glamour of words are concerned. Tennyson
once told me that the only excuse for rhyme was that it
helped the memory. That may have been so in ancient
times ; but is it so now ? My only test of poetry is : Does
it stand translation into prose ? It struck me when I read
Miss Naden's poems that several of them would stand that
test, and I am glad to hear that the world has found it out."
C. Lloyd Morgan, Dean of University College, Bristol,
writes : " Although I am not prepared to accept all her con-
clusions, I yield to no one in my sincere admiration of Miss
Constance Naden's genius. She was gifted with rare philo-
sophical insight, and a clearness of perception and presenta-
tion which illuminates all she has written. Combining the
woman's delicate intuition with the more masculine power
of firm logic, she gave promise of taking a position in specu-
lative philosophy to which no woman and very few men
have attained. And then death came just when her rich
nature was beginning to mature its fruit."
Miss Jane Hume Clapperton, authoress of " Scientific
Meliorism," etc., writes : " It is with mingled feelings that I
pen a tribute to the memory of Constance Naden. Gratified
pride in that she belonged to my own sex springs up when
SOME PERSONAL AND PRESS OPINIONS. 9
I contemplate her varied gifts and keenly intellectual powers;
but when the moral aspects of her personality are remem-
bered, every other sentiment gives way to poignant regret.
The earnest truth-seeking of her nature and her simple alle-
giance to truth, when she had found it, are rare characteristics
in either sex ; and there presses on me the conviction that
with the too early cessation of this valuable life there was
lost to the cause of progress a social force of admirable
quality and widely effective range."
Charles LocKHARTRoBERTSON,M.D.(Cantab),F.R.C.P.,
Lord Chancellor's Visitor in Lunacy, writes : " I knew Miss
Constance Naden very well, and I need not say that I greatly
valued the friendship which she extended to my wife and
to myself. I read with much interest the first volume of
poetry which she published in 1880, ' Songs and Sonnets
of Springtime.'" I still think it full of girlish grace. In the
'Songs and Sonnets of Springtime' I would name 'The
Abbot' as full of promise. Again, when her youth is remem-
bered, and that her studies were all made in England, her
translations from the German seem to me of great merit.
Thus the Sonnet, ' Bury the Dead Thou Lovest,' from the
German of Karl Siebel, is most gracefully rendered ; and I
think her translation of Schiller's ' Knight of Toggenburg,'
' Life and the Ideal,' etc., may be compared with those of
more distinguished translators. Her wonderful mastery of
the German language is shown in the Sonnet, ' Das Ideal.'
Her skill in design and taste in art are shown in the floral
decoration on the cover of the volumes in question."
J. J. AuBERTiN, translator of Camoens' " Lusiads," Com-
mendador of the literary Order of Portugal, "SaoThiago,"
and the same of the " Rosa " in Brazil, writes to Dr. Lewins :
"Miss Naden's too early death was a blow to our literature,
both scientific and poetical. Her pen had already achieved
much for so young an author, and gave abundant promise
for a great deal more. As that ' more ' has become impos-
sible, it only remains to give every form to what she has left,
and I hail your now intended publication on that ground."
Shadworth H. Hodgson, President of the Aristotelian
Society, writes to Dr. Lewins : " The enclosed transcription
of the passage in the Aristotelian Society's Committee's
lO THE WORKS OF CONSTANCE NADEN.
Report, adopted by a General Meeting, in which Miss
Naden's lamented death is recorded, does justice, as it seems
to me, to the favourable impression made on the Society by
her great abilities : —
" *■ Extract from the Report of the Committee of the Aristotelian Society
for the Eleventh Session, liSg-iSgo, adopted at the General
Meeting of the Society, June i6th, iSgo.
" ' Constance C. W. Naden was the daughter of Mr.
Thomas Naden, of Birmingham, and was educated at the
Mason College, Ijirmingham, where she distinguished herself
particularly in Logic and Philosophy.* Miss Naden was
elected a member of our Society in 1888, and at once
attracted attention by her clear and striking contributions to
our discussions. It was her intention to have read a paper
during this Session on " Rationalist and Empiricist Ethics,"
but her fatal illness prevented her from accomplishing
it. The notes prepared by Miss Naden for this paper
are printed on page 77 of this journal, as well as others
which were found among her papers, on " The Place of
Mental Physiology in Philosophy." Miss Naden's lamented
death in December last, at the early age of thirty-one, has
been the subject of very general regret, and the public
press has given a full account of her life and work. The
essay on " Induction and Deduction," written while Miss
Naden was at Mason College, has recently been published,
together with other papers and a biographical notice, by her
friend. Dr. Lewins. By her death the Society loses one of
its most valuable members.'— From ' The Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society,' vol. i., no. iii., part 2, page 160
(Williams cS: Norgate, 1890). Communicated by Shadworth
H. Hodgson, President."
H. WiLDON Carr, the Hon. Secretary of the Aristotelian
Society, writes to Dr. Lewins : " I am glad to hear that a
new edition of Miss Naden's poems is being published. I
had the pleasure of meeting her often at the Aristotelian
Society during the short time of her membership. She took
very great interest in our discussions, and was preparing a
paper for us at the time of her last illness. Her early death
was felt very deeply by all of us."
* See her " Memoir " by the Treasurer of the Birmingham Corpora-
tion, Mr. Hughes, F.L.S.— ./?. L.
SOME PERSONAL AND PRESS OPINIONS.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS
On Selections from the Philosophical and Poetical Works of Constance
C. W. Naden. Compiled by Emily and Edith Hughes. With
an Introduction by George M. McCrie. (Bickers ; 3s. 6d.)
" An elegant little book to look upon, and will doubtless
prove admirably attractive to admirers of Miss Naden's
philosophical writings." — Saturday Review.
"The volume of 'Selections from the Philosophical and
Poetical Works of Miss Constance C. W. Naden,' compiled
by the Misses Emily and Edith Hughes, and published by
Messrs. Bickers & Son, is one of the daintiest that we
have seen for some time. The selections from her essay
on ' Induction and Deduction ' contain some remarkably
fine expressions, and many other parts of the book are of
great interest." — Nature.
" There are, probably, a large number of persons who are
unacquainted with anything of Constance Naden's writings,
and to such the volume before us — a dainty little volume,
gilt-edged, and tastefully bound — will give some insight
into her style of work and thought. Miss Naden, who died
in 1889, was a philosopher of somewhat advanced views ;
we are told in the very brief introduction to these ' Selec-
tions ' that ' the thought currents of our day are even now
setting in the direction she indicated,' that Herbert
Spencer thought her endowed with the exceptional combi-
nation of ' receptivity and originality ' in an equally great
degree, and that she was an exponent of 'Synthetic
Monism.' Anyone who wishes to verify these assertions
may do so by help of the extracts from her ' Essays ' and
' Reliques ' here collected." — St. fames' s Gazette.
" Miss Naden wrote charming and humorous light verses.
We should like a complete edition of her poems." —
Pa// Ma// Gazette.
" Her cult has the merit of much originality, and we feel
sure that a perusal of the extracts contained in this small
volume will induce a reader to appreciate it, and wish to
study it in its unabridged form." — Pub/ic Opinioti.
12 . THE WORKS OF CONSTANCE NADEN :
" The Misses Emily and Edith Hughes supply ' Selec-
tions from the Philosophical and Poetical Works of Con-
stance C. W. Naden,' whose premature loss is so deeply
lamented. The trend of Miss Naden's mind was distinctly
philosophical, and her ripest energies were directed in this
channel. These isolated gems shine with delightful lustre
apart from their settings. It is a book which will find many
devotees among the new thinkers of the day." — British
Medical Journal.
" This volume should succeed in introducing the work of
a subtle thinker to many people to whom, hitherto, the
name of Constance Naden has been unknown." — Publishers^
Circular.
" The volume is illustrated by a portrait of Miss Naden,
and is dedicated to Dr. Lewins, her friend and mentor.
The prose extracts precede the poetic, but the latter are
more likely to attract the ordinary reader, as they abound
in quiet humour. We are glad to find that charming little
jeu d'esprit, ' Solomon Redivivus,' has not been omitted." —
Literary World.
" These extracts show that Miss Naden had some gift for
epigram, and could present her philosophic views in a clear
and striking manner." — Guardian.
" To those who have not the good fortune to own
acquaintance with Miss Naden's published writings, this
selection may be cordially recommended. The passages
from her philosophical essays and tracts, and the examples
of her poetic genius, which are contained in this beautiful
product of the printer's art, will, we feel confident, lead
many readers to a study of the works themselves."— Z/'/^^r/j;
Review.
" Miss Naden was one of those great intelligences that,
flashing meteor-like across the firmament of the world of
philosophic thought, left, in her brief passage, few (yet dis-
tinct and valuable) traces of the operations of her mind." —
Bookseller.
" Miss Naden was, no doubt, an exceedingly clever
woman of decidedly advanced views on most subjects." —
Notes and Queries.
SOME PERSONAL AND PRESS OPINIONS. 13
"This is a book which is interesting and full of sug-
gestion Her verse, especially her lighter verse, is
decidedly attractive Her ardent character and single-
minded devotion to science are more attractive still." —
Womafi.
" These selections will be valued by those who have
recognised her rare genius, alike in her philosophical writings
and her poems The name of Constance Naden is
probably known to but a comparative few, for the general
reader takes little interest in works such as she wrote. As,
since her death, however, there have been many contro-
versies regarding her opinions, some misunderstandings and
misconceptions, this present selection should help to make
her writings more widely appreciated." — Court Ciroi/ar.
" This book gives a representative series of saws, para-
graphs, and poems from the writings of the gifted propa-
gandist of Hylo-Idealism, and will be welcome to many
who are curious about the ideas and teaching of this
strange transcendentalist." — Scotsman.
"Altogether the book is an interesting one and we
may at least allow that the author of ' A Modern Apostle '
had, in her composition, some of the true gold of poetry."
— Manchester Guardian.
"This is an exceedingly pretty little volume These
extracts from Miss Naden's poems bring out the simplicity,
tenderness, and playful humour of a noble nature." —
Birmingham Daily Post.
" Messrs. Bickers & Son have issued a tasteful volume in
the familiar covers bearing the Bell flower, containing selec-
tions from the works of the late Miss Constance Naden,
The Constance Naden literature is steadily increasing
and therefore it is that these selections, carefully, skilfully,
and intelligibly compiled by Miss Emily and Miss Edith
Hughes, will be of real service and high value alike to the
casual reader and to the student. It is most appropriate
that this pleasing and necessary work should have been
undertaken by these hands So deftly has the work been
done that we scarcely notice the absence of the links, and
it is possible from the fragments to obtain a true percep-
14 THE WORKS OF CONSTANCE NADEN :
tion of the leading points in the theory of Induction and
Deduction, and its association with Evolution The
Misses Hughes are to be congratulated upon having ex-
tracted the real ore, the essentials, from Miss Naden's
writings ; and, without being too sparing on the one hand,
or too prodigal on the other, have included what is best
and what is most just to that lady's memory." — Birming-
ham Daily Gazette.
"Admirers of the gifted young lady who was prema-
turely cut off by death some three years ago, before she
had had time to give more than an indication of her rare
talents, will welcome this elegant and tasteful little volume."
— Glasgow Herald.
" The object of the compilers has been to attract readers
to Miss Naden's writings themselves ; and, from the very
careful manner in which the selections have been
made, we should think that the student will be so much
interested in the extracts as to desire to peruse the books
from which they have been culled." — Midland Counties
Express.
"The personality of the late Miss Naden is familiar to
most Birmingham people who are interested in literary
matters, and probably few are unacquainted with the striking
series of philosophical essays by which she showed most
conclusively that it is possible for a woman to grapple
successfully with some of the deepest problems which
present themselves to thoughtful minds. The present little
volume, choice and attractive in its external aspect, is a
loving attempt to bring together, in a moderate compass, some
of her most pregnant observations, together with a selection
from her poems. Miss Naden's vigorous and determined
search for truth, her strong and clear exposition of her
theory of ' Hylo-Idealism,' and her lighter and more playful
side, as shown in many of her poems, are all well displayed ;
and no reader can fail to be attracted by so interesting a
catena of thoughts from so powerful a mind. An excellent
portrait of Miss Naden is prefixed to the book." — The
Central Literary Magazine.
" Miss Naden's works are well known to our readers, and
SOME PERSONAL AND PRESS OPINIONS. 1 5
their merits are so universally recognised that it is unneces-
sary to say one single word in praise of them. It was a
happy thought which induced the ^Misses Hughes to
prepare this charming book of selections. They are derived
from all Miss Naden's published works, her two volumes of
poems and her prose works issued since her much deplored
death. The extracts have been selected with great skill
and discrimination, and they will do much to make a wider
circle of readers acquainted with the philosophic insight,
power of giving lucid expression to abstruse thoughts, and
the literary excellences of the greatest local genius of modern
times. The book is well printed and handsomely bound."
— The Midland Naturalist.
" We notice with much interest a volume of ' Selections
from the Works of Constance C. W. Naden,' compiled by
Emily and Edith Hughes, with an introduction by George
M. McCrie. It is always a pleasure to meet with fresh
indications of the far-reaching influence of Miss Naden's
philosophical and literary works, and the present volume is
likely to be especially useful in interesting those who are
not already acquainted with her books. The selections have
been made with much care and thought, and are calculated
to give a considerable insight into her philosophical
teaching. About two-thirds of the volume is devoted to
extracts from the philosophical writings, the remainder to
the poems. Among the latter we note the exquisite
' Pantheist's Song of Immortality,' probably the best known
of her poetical works, and also the charmingly humorous
'Scientific Wooing,' 'The New Orthodoxy,' and 'Solomon
Redivivus,' the first of which appeared in the Mason College
Magazine, when Miss Naden was one of its leading spirits.
The volume is well got up, and in every way suitable for a
gift-book. We wish it every success." — The Mason College
Magazine.
" The chief difficulty that meets the critic is that of
selection amid the wealth of intellectual matter to be found
between the covers of this beautiful little tome The
ladies are to be congratulated on the excellent way in
which their task has been accomplished ; not least in
choosing for the outside decoration of the book — and a
most beautiful one it is— the favourite flower of the dead
l6 THE WORKS OF CONSTANXK NADEX :
authoress, whose work and memory they have done so
much to immortalise."* — Rochester and Chatham N'eivs.
" This chaste Uttle volume is the result of much earnest
research through the writings of one of the most remarkable
women of modern times. Miss Naden, whose premature
decease was recorded about four years ago, was a native of
Birmingham, and her wonderful intellect enabled her to
grasp the most difficult of scientific and philosophic studies.
We advise those of our readers who are unacquainted
with the writings of this talented lady to acquire the
anthology which the Misses Hughes have so diligently
prepared." — Herts Illustrated Revieiv.
[After these authoritative eulogies the only censure I can find is con-
tained in an insignificant print, Syk'icC s Joiirnal,-\ which is ansv\ered by
me in the article here reproduced, entitled " Constance Naden and
Materialism," in which the criticaster's ignorance and presumption are
fairly exposed. — R. L.]
" One would like to speak only in the kindest way of this
selection from the work of an interesting young writer, who
died a year or two ago ; but, notwithstanding Mr. Gladstone's
praise of her, the fact cannot be disguised that a very great
deal has been made out of a very little. The work, which
is published by Messrs. Bickers & Son, of Leicester Square,
is beautifully produced ; and, if the editing had been on a
par with the publishing. Miss Naden's memory would have
been better served. The two ladies, Miss Emily and Miss
Edith Hughes, whose names appear on the title-page as the
compilers, have evidently done their labour of love with
care ; but they appear sadly lacking in literary judgment in
regard to the selection. Many extracts are given which are
utterly unworthy of being served up as single gems ; for, so far
from being tersely, epigrammatically, or happily expressed,
they strike one as inexpressibly commonplace and obvious.
* Notes by Dr. Lewins. — The selection is by Miss Naden herself, and
is to be found in her two earlier poetical volumes ("Songs and
Sonnets of Springtime" and " The Modern Apostle," etc.).
t I do not mention one or two scurrilous articles in the National
Ohsei-ver, a journal conducted on Jingo and "Patriotic" (see Dr.
Johnson's definition of the term) lines, as the scurrility is directed, not
against Miss Naden, whom it designates Titania, as against her
Executor, vilified as " Bottom."
SOME PERSONAL AND PRESS OPINIONS. 1 7
Opening the book at random, the first gem I light on is :
' Before reprobating (sic) any statement as false, we should
take care to inquire into the facts, that truth may ever
remain inviolate,' which is only another way of saying that
two and two make four. On the next page I open I find
the following startling statement standing by itself: 'The
name of Plato is the greatest in Greek philosophy,' which is
scarcely less likely to be denied than the incompetency of
Miss Naden's editors. But for pretentious and utter
gratuitousness commend me to the introduction, which is,
we are informed, by Mr. George M. McCrie, who is
apparently more anxious to ' introduce ' Mr. George M
McCrie than Miss Naden. The book is a lamentable
example of the old adage, ' Preserve us from our friends.' "
* *
*
CONSTANCE NADEN AND MATERIALISM.
To the Editor of " Sylvia's Jottrnal."
Sir, — Perhaps I may be allowed, as literary executor of
the late Miss Naden, to make a brief comment on your
somewhat depreciating notice of her poetry and philosophy,
which have extorted the approval of thinkers like Herbert
Spencer, Dr. Samuel Smiles, Dr. R. W. Dale, Lord Reay
Mr, Gladstone, and other notabilities.*
The difiiculty in the way of a satisfactory appreciation of
her thesis is well cleared up by her own essay, " What is
Religion ?" and by my pamphlet, " Humanism v. Theism,"
and also by Mr. G. M. McCrie's leaflet, " Sadducee v. Phari-
see " (Bickers and Son). Its gist may be summarised in a
very few words by characterising it as the subjectivation of
the objective, exactly Kant's negation of " Thing in Itself,"
the high-water mark of that cosmopolitan metaphysician, a
standpoint from which he receded in all his profound works
after \\iQ, first edition of the " Critique of Pure Reason." It
is nothing new, but only the present high-water mark and
position of contemporary exact science and ethics. It is
clear that, on these selfist data, each individual sentient being
creates and determines its own cosmos and entire existence
Sixty years ago Wohler succeeded in transforming inor-
* See .STy/z'/aV ybz^rwa/ for January, 1894, page loi.
1 8 THE WORKS OF CONSTANCE NAUEN :
ganic compounds into the organic Urea. Now, this proves,
beyond the possibility of rational dispute and doubt, that
no hard-and-fast partition separates these seemingly distinct
natural kingdoms — the organic and inorganic — from each
other. Life, therefore (biogenesis), is no novel innovation,
but simply a more complex arrangement and modification
of 7iot-life, all forms of which are fundamentally abiogenic.
The conventional notion, immemorially held as a sacro-
sanct tenet, that a special Divine element enters into human
vital phenomena, is thus seen to be an illusion having no
ground in reality. This scientific substantiation is, in our
time, the great desideratum, not merely the great Perhaps.
—I am, Sir, yours, etc., R. Lewins, M.D.,
Surgeon Lieut. -Colonel ( R.)'
Army and Navy Club, Pall Mall.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS
On Constance Naden : A Memoir. By William R. Hughes,
F.L.S., with an Introduction by Professor Lapworth, LL.D.,
F.R.S., and additions by Professor Tilden, D.Sc, F.R.S.,
and Robert Lewins, M.D., Surgeon Lieutenant-Colonel (R.).
(Bickers ; 2s. 6d.)
"To Mr. Hughes, who is responsible for the greater portion
of its contents, much gratitude is due from all friends and
admirers of Miss Naden for the great and loving care which
he has devoted to the task of writing a faithful and sympa-
thetic sketch of her short but brilliant career." — The Literary
World.
" This volume, which depicts in sympathetic style the life
of the gifted lady whose name forms the title, is a work of
love that Mr. Hughes has given to the world of her admirers,
which were very numerous, especially in the Midland
capital. Her philosophic turn of mind, her thirst for
scientific knowledge, and her keen appreciation of art
marked her out as a prominent character in the history, not
only of Birmingham, but of science and art. Mr. Hughes
has prepared a Memoir which shows great care and does
him great credit."— 7%^ Metropolitan.
SOME PERSONAL AND PRESS OPINIONS. 1 9
" It is a marvellous record for a woman who died when
she was barely thirty." — Woman.
" The strength of the impressions made by the late
Constance Naden on her friends is now further declared by
the little volume of Memoirs put together by three or four
of them They serve perhaps better than any one sketch
could do to tell how remarkable were Miss Naden's abilities,
how deep was the sense of loss that fell at her death on all
who knew her, and how lovable and estimable was the
moral nature with which her rare mental powers were bound
up." — The National Reformer.
" Her intellectual development is a great testimony to the
value of modern scientific education, and her Memoir
should be studied by all who are interested in the training
of what is often unfairly stigmatised as ' precocious ' intelli-
gence. " — Afanc/iesler Examiner.
"Miss Naden, who died on Christmas Eve, 1889, at the
early age of thirty-one, was a devoted disciple of Mr.
Herbert Spencer,* and, during her short but brilliant career,
has written many essays on scientific subjects, which indi-
cated such a remarkably keen intellect as to call forth
admiration and comment from her most distinguished con-
temporaries. Mr. Hughes's pleasantly-written Memoir is
appropriately supplemented by contributions from other
personal friends — viz., Professor Lapworth, LL.D., F.R.S.,
Professor Tilden, D.Sc, F.R.S., and Dr. Robert Lewins,
of the Army Medical Department." — Herts Advertiser and
St. Alban^s Times.
" Miss Naden was a lady of undoubted genius, not only
as a poetess, but in the more abstruse paths of philosophy ;
and her early death, at the age of thirty-one years, is a
national loss Mr. Hughes is a loving as well as talented
chronicler of Miss Naden's life, and his scholarly attain-
ments are well seen in the Memoir." — Chatham and Rochester
Times.
* Note by Surgeon Lieut. -Colonel Dr. Lewins. — Miss Naden's admi-
ration for Mr. Spencer was undoubtedly very great. But her own
originality was such that she cannot properly be termed his " disciple."
The Royal Society's motto, '■'■Nullius in Verba" etc . was, with her,
quite instinctive.
20 THE WORKS OF CONSTANCE NADEN :
" The book is altogether one that will assist to a perfect
conception of the marvellous character which developed so
mightily, and shines out with so intense a radiance — a
radiance which our eyes, unused to such, must be pre-
pared for to understand aright." — The Birmingham Daily
Gazette.
" The Appendix to Mr. Hughes's Memoir of the late
Miss Constance Naden — that remarkable poet and student
of science whom Mr. Gladstone's well-remembered reference
helped to make famous — comprises a letter from Mr.
Herbert Spencer, who pays a high tribute to the powers of
his young disciple :* ' I can think of no woman [he says],
save George Eliot, in whom there has been this union of
high philosophical capacity with extensive acquisition.
Unquestionably, her subtle intelligence would have done
much in furtherance of rational thought, and her death has
entailed a serious loss.'" — The Daily News.
"Gifted beyond the ordinary lot of woman An en-
thusiast for art, and a writer of poetry of no mean order,
the real bent of her mind was towards the study of philo-
sophy,"— The Publishers' Circular.
" Excellently done, in a simple and telling style." — The
Mason College Magazine.
" She died too soon. She achieved much ; she pro-
mised more ; had she lived twenty years longer, I believe
she would have taken a great and enduring place in English
literature." — Dr. Dale, in The Contemporary Review.
" It is, indeed, a valuable tribute, not only to the remark-
able intellectual powers of the subject of the Memoir, but
to the value of the educational means we possess, and by
which those powers were fostered. Mr. Hughes's little book
is well written, well edited, and well printed." — The Midland
Institute Magazine.
" We have only praise to give Mr. Hughes for the admir-
able manner in which he has dealt with the very miscella-
neous materials placed at his disposal, and for the generous
appreciation which has enabled him to do justice to all sides
* See footnote on previous page.
SOME PERSONAL AND PRESS OPINIONS. 21
of an exceptionally rich and complex character." — The
Central Literary Magazine.
" The book is printed in clear type, paragraphed, and
easy to read. It is full of the most instructive and interest-
ing matter which it is possible to put into print — namely, the
ardent, unceasing struggles of a human soul during its whole
life upon earth to know something of its environment, to
understand the why and the wherefore of all things. The
story fascinates as it is read, and it is not difficult to perceive
that a kind pen, a wise pen, the pen of one who knew Miss
Naden well, has written these pages " — Shafts.
•X- * * *
" This little work (' Induction and Deduction ') acquires
a melancholy interest from the fact that the talented young
authoress has not lived to see its publication. The title
essay, on ' Induction and Deduction,' gained in 1887 the
Heslop Memorial Medal, provided out of the proceeds of a
bequest to the Mason Science College of Birmingham by
the late Dr. Heslop, and awarded annually by the Council
of the College.* It is clear, concise, well arranged, and care-
fully thought out ; and leads one to believe that, had the
hand of Death been withheld, Miss Naden would have made
valuable contributions to philosophic thought. For Miss
Naden the fundamental principle in philosophy is the
famous Protagorean formula of relativity, that 'man is, to man,
the measure of all things, of things that are that they are, and
of things that are not that they are not.'t She insists on the
close inter-connection of induction and deduction in all
reasoning, the two processes not being antagonistic, but
complementary. Both involve cognition and recognition ;
but, whereas induction is a process of cognition involving
recognitions, deduction is a process of recognition 'involving
cognitions. The historical development is traced from the
Greek cosmologists, through Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Des-
cartes, and Locke, Mill, Jevons, and T. H. Green; and
* It may be mentioned that a marble companion bust to that of Dr,
Heslop, of Miss Naden, has been placed in the Library of Mason
Science College.
t This formula of the more sober Berkeley of antiquity is quite mis-
represented by Plato when he objects that, if so, it must be the same
in the case of the Baboon. No doubt it is so to that " poor relation." —
R, L,
22 THE WORKS OF CONSTANCE NADEN :
there are many signs that Miss Naden had not merely
grasped, but assimilated, the teachings of those whose in-
fluence on the theory of reasoning she traced " — Pro-
fessor Lloyd Morgan, Dean of Bristol University College,
in Nature.
" Miss Naden's departure from this world has left a blank
which it will be hard to fill up. England and India both
have reason to mourn her loss, as she has identified herself
with all great movements in England, and was also thinking
of doing something in this country in remembrance of her
visit to the Indian peninsula. The prominent part she took,
in conjunction with Dr. Garrett Anderson, regarding medical
aid to Indian women, endears her name to this country, and
entitles her to our gratitude and respect. To her personal
attributes, which were so brilliant and varied, it is difficult
to do justice. As a real thinker, genuine debater, and elo-
quent speaker, she remains almost unrivalled among her
own sex, and I cannot describe with what attention and
admiration her friends met at 114, Park Street, on Satur-
days, which was her home day, to listen to her brilliant
conversation."— U. S. Misra, Barrister-at-Law (^^A://-fl<r//r<7w
the Indian " Pioneer "_j.
R. LEWINS, M.D.,
Surgeon Lieut. ■ Colonel ( I\. ).
Army and Navy Club, S. W.
WORKS BY THE LATE CONSTANCE NADEN.
SELECTIONS FROM THE PHILOSOPHICAL & POETI-
CAL WORKS OF CONSTANCE C. W. NADEN. Compiled
and Arranged by the Misses Emily and Edith Hughes, and
illustrated by a Portrait of Miss Naden. With an Introduction
by George M. McCrie, Author of " Further Reliques of Con-
stance Naden," Cloth, 3s. 6d.
INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION. A Historical and Critical
Sketch of Successive Philosophical Conceptions Respecting the
Relations between Inductive and Deductive Thought ; and Other
Essays. Edited by R. Lewins, M.D., Army Medical Depart-
ment. With Memoir and Portrait of the Author. I vol., 8vo,
cloth extra, 7s. 6d.
FURTHER RELIQUES OF CONSTANCE NADEN. Edited
by G. M. McCrie. I vol., crown 8vo, cloth, with Portrait and
- Autograph Letters, 7s. 6d.
A MODERN APOSTLE ; The Elixir of Life ; The Story of
, Clarice ; and Other Poems. Crown 8vo, cloth, 5s.
SONGS AND SONNETS OF SPRINGTIME. Small crown
8vo, cloth, 5s.
WHAT IS RELIGION? A Plea for Individualism. Paper
wrapper, 8vo, is., by post is. id.
Bickers & Son, Leicester Square, W.C.
WORKS ON CONSTANCE NADEN & HYLO-IDEALISM.
CONSTANCE NADEN : A Memoir. By William R. Hughes,
F. L.S., Treasurer of the City of Birmingham. With an Intro-
duction by Trofessor Lapworth, LL.D., F.R.S., President
of the Geological Section of the *' British Association " at Edin-
burgh for 1892, and Additions by Professor Tilden, D.Sc,
F.R.S., and Robert Lewins, M.D., Surgeon Lieut. -Colonel
(R). With Portrait. 112 pp., cloth, 2s. 6d.
CONSTANCE NADEN AND HYLO-IDEALISM : A Critical
Study. By E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D., author of "Dic-
tionary of Phrase and Fable," " The Reader's Handbook,"
"The Historical Note-book," etc. Annotated by R. Lewins,
M.D. Paper wrapper, 8vo, is., by post is. id.
SADDUCEE versus PHARISEE: A Vindication of Neo-Mate-
rialism. In Two Essays. I. Constance Naden : A Study in
Auto-Monism. II. Pseudo-Scientific Terrorism. By G. M.
McCrie. With an Appendix reprinted from the Journal of
Mental Science. Crown 8vo, price 6d., by post 7d.
HUMANISM versus THEISM ; Or, SOLIPSISM (EGOISM) =
ATHEISM. In a Series of Letters to Constance Naden
by Robert Lewins, M.D. Crown 8vo, wrapper, price 6d.,
by post 7d.
Bickers & Son, Leicester Square, W.C.
J
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